Intermiij  of  QlJjtraga 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  OMNIPOTENCE 
IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 

OF  THE  GRADUATE    SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 


BY 


RIICHIRO  HOASHI 


Private  Edition,  Dis  tributed  By 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1918 


EXCHANGE 


Sty?  litttoratig  of  (Eljtraijn 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  OMNIPOTENCE 
IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 


A  DISSERTATION 


SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY 

OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS  AND  LITERATURE 

IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT  OF  SYSTEMATIC  THEOLOGY 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  DIVINITY  SCHOOL 


BY 

RIICHIRO  HOASHI 

M 


Private  Edition,  Distributed  By 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  LIBRARIES 

CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 

1918 


SXCHANGK 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 1 

The  scope  of  the  investigation 1 

The  main  problems  involved 2 

(1)  The  problem  of  evolution,  (2)  The  problem  of  imperfection,  (3) 
The  problem  of  evil,  (4)  The  problem  of  sin,  (5)  The  problem  of  free- 
dom, (6)  Problems  created  by  denying  omnipotence. 

Theological  conception  of  God 3 

DEFINITION  or  DIVINE  OMNIPOTENCE 7 

Absolute  or  transcendent  omnipotence 7 

Pantheistic  or  immanent  omnipotence 8 

Modified  omnipotence 9 

(1)  Quasi  absolute  omnipotence 9 

(2)  Deterministic  omnipotence 11 

(3)  Creative  omnipotence 13 

(4)  Creation  as  main  content  of  divine  omnipotence 14 

Summary 17 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVOLUTION  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 20 

The  problem 20 

(1)  General  survey,  (2)  The  conception  of  evolution,  (3)  The  theis- 
tic  interpretation  of  the  fact  of  evolution,  (4)  The  problem  of  evolution 
and  divine  omnipotence. 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem 23 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  absolute  omnipotence 23 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  modified  omnipotence 27 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  denying  omnipotence 32 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  IMPERFECTION  IN  RELATION  TO  OMNIPOTENCE 36 

The  problem 36 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem 36 

Solution  of  the  problem  by  affirming  absolute  omnipotence 36 

Solution  of  the  problem  by  affirming  modified  omnipotence 38 

Solution  of  the  problem  by  denying  omnipotence 40 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  PHYSICAL  EVIL  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 44 

The  problem 44 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem 45 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  absolute  omnipotence 45 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  modified  omnipotence 47 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  denying  omnipotence 51 

Summary 59 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  MORAL  EVIL  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 61 

The  problem... 61 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem 62 

Possible  solution  of  the  problem  by  affirming  absolute  omnipotence 62 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  modified  omnipotence 63 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  denying  omnipotence 72 

Summary 77 


LEM  OF  HUMAN  FREEDOM  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 79 

The  problem 79 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem 79 

Possible  solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  absolute  omnipotence 79 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  affirming  modified  omnipotence 81 

Solutions  of  the  problem  by  denying  omnipotence 86 

THE  CONCEPTION  or  A  NON-OMNIPOTENT  GOD 89 

A  non-omnipotent  God  who  is  the  Creator  of  the  universe 89 

(1)  Theologians'  concession  to  non-omnipotence 89 

(2)  A  non-omnipotent  God  as  working  in  the  process  of  evolution 90 

(3)  A  non-omnipotent  God  as  Creator  but  hindered  by  a  rival  Power..  90 

(4)  Criticism  of  the  conception  of  a  non-omnipotent  God  as  Creator  of 

the  universe 90 

A  non-omnipotent  God  who  is  not  the  Creator  of  the  universe 91 

(1)  A  non-omnipotent  God  as  designer  of  the  universe : 93 

(2)  A  Gnostic  conception  of  God  not  as  Creator  but  as  Redeemer 94 

(3)  A  finite  God  as  a  director  of  the  universe 95 

Summary 96 

CONCLUSION 98 

Restatement  of  the  problem  of  omnipotence  and  its  solutions  in  a  simplified 

form : 98 

1.  Fundamental  presuppositions 98 

2.  Strongest  points  in  favor  of  affirming  omnipotence  in  a  modified  sense  99 

3.  Strongest  points  in  favor  of  denying  omnipotence  even  in  the  modified 

sense 101 

4.  Further  reduction  of  divine  omnipotence  as  to  creatorship 102 

Religious  valuation  of  the  different  positions 103 

1.  Religious  disadvantages  of  typical  positions 103 

2.  Religious  value  of  typical  positions 107 

Conclusion — Current  tendency  in  the  conception  of  God 110 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 113 


CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 
The  Scope  of  Our  Investigation 

Christian  theologians  have  denned  God  as  absolute  sovereign  (ens 
absolutum)  of  the  world.  "The  sovereignty  of  God,"  says  Charles 
Hodge,  a  modern  exponent  of  the  Medieval  tradition,  "is  universal 
and  extends  over  all  his  creatures  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest.  It  is 
absolute  and  there  is  no  limit  to  be  placed  to  his  authority."1  Such 
a  conception  of  divine  absoluteness  in  government  leads  us  to  the  affirma- 
tion of  omnipotence  indicating  that  God  is  the  masterful,  decisive  cause 
of  everything.  But  the  sovereignty  of  God  is  not  to  be  conceived  as 
a  despotic  domination,  making  God  a  taskmaster  and  men  his  slaves. 
"Although  the  sovereignty, "  says  Hodge,  "is  thus  universal  and  absolute, 
it  is  the  sovereignty  of  wisdom,  holiness,  and  love."2  So  with  omnipo- 
tence. Practical  interests  require  modifications  of  the  divine  almighti- 
ness.  We  do  not  want  to  conceive  God  as  mere  uncontrolled  and 
uncontrollable  power.  We  cannot  think  him  to  be  a  brute  force  blindly 
acting  without  aim  and  end.  The  very  idea  of  God  seems  to  imply 
unmistakably  his  moral  and  rational  character,  as  Hodge  says,  with 
wisdom,  holiness,  and  love.  The  almightiness  of  God  then  must  be 
subject  to  rational  and  moral  direction.  The  divine  power,  however 
absolute  and  infinitely  resourceful,  should  be  expressed  in  limited  ways 
in  accordance  with  the  intrinsic  nature  and  character  of  God.  Now 
the  problem  is:  how  are  these  practical  limitations  to  be  harmonized 
with  the  idea  of  omnipotence  which  literally  signifies  an  absolute 
power?  "How  can  God,"  asks  James  Ward,  "be  omnipotent,  and 
yet  be  limited?"  The  ideas  of  creation  and  of  God  as  creator  imply  a 
self-limitation  of  divine  activity  in  a  definite  way,  and  this  self-limitation 
means  nothing  but  a  limitation.  As  soon  as  God  has  created  anything 
in  a  definite  way,  can  we  still  call  him  absolutely  free?  If  God  is  to  act 
in  limited  ways,  can  we  still  call  him  almighty?  The  problem  has 
long  given  much  trouble  to  theological  writers,  but  they  are  unwilling 
to  give  up  the  conception  of  omnipotence.  Consequently  they  affirm 
the  idea  of  divine  power  with  diverse  modifications.  The  task  of  this 
thesis  is  to  see  whether  such  modifications  do  not  so  undermine  the  con- 

1  Charles  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  440. 
zlbid.,  Vol.  I,  441. 


.•':  «,•         :  ^OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

ception  of  omnipotence  as  to  leave  no  actual  content  in  the  term.  If 
we  frankly  assume  a  limited  omnipotence  as  acceptable  to  our  thought, 
a  further  task  is  to  see  whether  this  modified  omnipotence  is  compatible 
with  facts  of  practical  life.  We  shall  finally  ask  how  the  conception  of 
divine  power  should  be  defined  in  order  to  meet  adequately  the  practical 
religious  needs  of  man. 

The  Main  Problems  Involved 

(1)  The  Problem  of  Evolution.     God's  world,  as  shown  by  modern 
sciences,  seems  to  be  developing  from  the  lower  to  the  higher,  from  the 
simple  to  the  complex,  from  the  worse  to  the  better,  through  a  tedious 
method  of  evolution  which  implies  incidental  waste  and  much  blunder- 
ing, destruction  and  decay,  suffering  and  sacrifice,  as  the  cost  of  progress. 
If  God  is  omnipotent,  why  does  he  not  accomplish  his  task  of  creation 
at  once  instead  of  by  the  slow  process  of  evolution  which  as  a  means  is 
in  itself  useless?    Or  shall  we  say  that  evolution  is  only  in  appearance 
and  that  things  are  all  complete  and  perfect  as  a  whole? 

(2)  The  Problem  of  Imperfection.     If  the  world  is  perfect  as  a 
whole,  or  God  the  creator  is  a  perfect  Being,  we  may  next  ask,  why  is 
there  the  sense  of  imperfection  in  life  and  nature?     Are  they  illusory, 
only  real  as  phenomenal  in  our  finite  view?    If  God  is  omnipotent,  can 
he  not  do  away  even  with  such  illusion  at  once  and  make  us  feel  more  at 
home  in  this  universe?     If  imperfections  are  real,  the  problem  would  be 
still  more  vexed.    How  can  God,  omnipotent  and  perfect  as  he  is,  put 
up  with  imperfections  in  his  created  universe?     Why,  for  instance, 
does  death  exist  which  is  at  least  an  undoing  of  what  has  once  been 
constructed  and  seems  to  be  a  failure  of  creation,  if  God  is  all  powerful? 

(3)  The  Problem  of  Evil.    Not  only  death  but  life  itself  involves  a 
vast  variety  of  ills  and  pains,  physical  suffering  and  mental  anguish. 
Why  does  God,  if  omnipotent,  tolerate  or,  indeed,  why  has  he  created 
such  evils  as  earthquakes,  storms,  floods,  droughts,  and  other  disasters 
which  cannot  be  ascribed  to  human  causation?    If  man  is  not  respon- 
sible for  them,  who  else  but  the  author  of  the  universe  can  be  responsible 
for  those  ills?    Shall  we  say  then  that  evil  exists  in  spite  of  a  good  God 
who  is  incessantly  struggling  against  it  and  that  he  will  finally  overcome 
it  all?    If  so,  can  he  still  be  regarded  as  omnipotent,  or  shall  we  under- 
stand him  better  without  such  an  awe-inspiring  word  as  omnipotence? 
These  are  in  the  main  the  implications  of  the  problem  of  evil. 

(4)  The  Problem  of  Sin.    Another  companion  problem  is  that  of 
sin  or  moral  evil.  The  fact  of  moral  evil  needs  no  proof.  Human  history 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  3 

is  often  said  to  be  a  history  of  sin,  and  everybody  is  conscious  of  his  own 
sinful  thoughts  and  deeds.  As  to  its  origin,  however,  sin  is  usually 
attributed  to  human  agents.  We  are  supposed  to  have  been  endowed 
by  the  Creator  with  the  power  of  free  choice  either  to  do  good  or  evil. 
But  if  God  made  man  who  has  originated  sin,  is  not  God  the  ultimate 
ground  of  sin?  Why,  being  supremely  good  and  omnipotent,  does  he 
not  eliminate  sin  at  once  from  the  universe?  On  the  other  hand,  if 
sin  is  inevitable  to  a  moral  system,  it  can  not  be  in  God's  power  to  cut 
it  out  at  once.  Can  such  a  God  be  called  omnipotent? 

(5)  The  Problem  of  Freedom.     Finally  we  may  ask,  if  God  is  omni- 
potent, how  much  of  freedom  can  we  have?    If  God  is  lord  of  all  existence, 
are  we  to  be  held  responsible  for  all  that  we  do?     Can  he  punish  us  for 
our  errors  and  wrongs,  while  he  is  the  author  of  all?    If  he  is  not  the 
author  of  all  but  we  also  are  authors  of  something,  at  least,  creative  in 
evil  doing,  can  God  still  be  called  omnipotent?    Does  not  our  freedom 
defeat   the  absolute   divine   control? 

(6)  Problems  Created  by  Denying  Omnipotence.    If  these  problems 
entail  a  difficulty  on  every  hand  with  our  conception  of  God  as  omnipotent 
creator,  can  the  denial  of  his  omnipotence  solve  the  problems?    If  so, 
does  not  the  denial  imply  the  denial  of  his  absolute  creatorship,  because, 
if  God  is  the  sole  creator  of  the  universe  de  now,  all  the  imperfections 
and  evils  in  the  world  must  be  directly  due  to  God,  even  though  he  is 
not  omnipotent?    Then,  the  nature  of  God  as  supremely  good  would 
be  questioned  since  he  is  the  ex  nihilo  creator  of  the  world  that  embraces 
evil,  although  he  may  not  be  almighty.    In  the  presence  of  such  a 
difficulty,  can  we  hold  to  his  supreme  goodness  if  we  give  up  the  idea 
of  his  creatorship  as  well  as  the  idea  of  his  omnipotence? 

Our  purpose  is  then  to  give  a  systematic  and  comprehensive  view 
of  different  solutions  of  these  problems  offered  by  current  theology 
from  diverse  points  of  view,  and  to  indicate  in  conclusion  the  relative 
value  of  typical  positions.  With  this  purpose  in  view,  we  must  first, 
before  entering  the  main  discussion,  define  the  general  conception  of 
God  in  order  to  see  clearly  what  place  the  idea  of  omnipotence,  relative 
to  its  problems,  has  in  the  conception  of  divine  attributes. 

Theological  Conception  of  God 

In  defining  the  nature  of  God,  such  divine  attributes  as  wisdom, 
power,  and  goodness  are  useally  expanded  to  the  superlative  degree 
to  make  them  consistent  with  the  thought  of  divine  perfection.  Charles 
Hodge,  representing  the  Calvinistic  type  of  traditional  theology,  asserts 


4  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

that  God  is  ens  perfectissimum;  "  absolute  perfection  distinguishes  Him 
from  all  other  beings."  The  best  definition  of  God,  he  says,  is  in  the 
"Westminster  Catechism,"  namely,  "God  is  a  spirit,  infinite,  eternal, 
and  unchangeable,  in  his  being,  wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice, 
goodness,  and  truth."  Exegetically  following  this  definition,  Hodge 
enumerates  the  divine  attributes  as  certain  perfections  of  God's  essence 
revealed  to  human  experience.  God  as  a  spirit,  self-existent  and 
"necessary,"  is  immaterial  and  simple.  This  self-existent,  immaterial 
being  cannot  be  thought  as  limited  in  space.  The  infinitude  of  God, 
says  Hodge,  is  not  merely  a  spatial  boundlessness  of  his  substance  but 
rather  an  illimitability  of  his  being  and  perfections.  God's  omnipre- 
sence as  to  spatial  relations  points  to  his  eternity  regarding  time.  His 
timelessness  leads  us  to  conceive  of  his  immutability  as  well  as  his 
omniscience.  The  changelessness  of  God  however,  says  Hodge,  does 
not  mean  his  inaction:  He  thinks,  feels,  wills  in  time,  and  the  result 
is  manifested  in  the  history  of  the  universe,  but  God  in  himself  is  time- 
less and  immutable  in  his  essence  and  attributes.  "He  can  neither 
increase  nor  decrease;  He  is  subject  to  no  process  of  development  or 
self-evolution.  His  knowledge  and  power  can  never  be  greater  or 
less."3  "Being  the  cause  of  all  things,"  Hodge  goes  on,  "God  knows 
everything  by  knowing  Himself;  all  things  possible,  by  the  knowledge 
of  his  power,  and  all  things  actual,  by  the  knowledge  of  his  purposes." 
If  God  be  ignorant  of  man's  free  act,  his  knowledge  must  be  limited 
and  "his  government  of  the  world  must  be  precarious,  dependent,  as 
it  would  then  be  on  the  unforeseen  conduct  of  men."  Thus  Hodge 
holds  that  the  eternal  God  has  a  prefect  knowledge  of  all  events  possible 
as  personality  implies  the  knowledge  of  himself  and  others.  With  the 
foreknowledge  of  all  things,  God  is  asserted,  as  a  person,  to  have  a 
perfect  power  of  will  or  self-determination.  "He  may  decree  to  permit 
what  He  forbids;  He  permits  men  to  sin,  although  sin  is  forbidden." 
Omniscient  and  omnipotent,  God  can  do  whatever  He  wills.  "He  wills 
and  it  is  done."  But  this  absoluteness  of  divine  power  does  not  mean 
that  he  can  act  contrary  to  his  nature — to  infinite  wisdom  and  love. 
God  with  his  omniscience  and  omnipotence,  says  Hodge,  would  be  to 
us  an  inscrutable  power  but  not  a  personal  God,  if  He  had  not  the  moral 
quality  of  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth  in  the  supreme  degree 
as  the  sovereign  of  the  universe. 

A  more  recent  author  such  as  Samuel  Harris  tersely  defines  God  as 
the  absolute  personal  spirit,  "unlimited  and  unconditioned  by  any  power 

3  Charles  Hodge,  Systematic   Theology,  Vol.  I,  390. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  5 

independent  of  himself.  He  is  the  all-conditioning,  the  Creator.  The 
universe,  with  all  in  it  that  is  finite,  must  be  created  by  God  and  depend- 
ent on  him."4  The  most  typical  definition,  however,  which  we  find 
among  the  theologians  of  today,  is  perhaps  that  which  is  given  by 
Clarke  and  generally  accepted  by  Brown.  In  substance  it  runs  as 
follows:  "God  is  the  personal  spirit,  perfectly  good,  who  in  holy  love 
creates,  sustains,  and  orders  all."  In  nature,  a  personal  spirit;  in 
character,  perfectly  good;  in  relation  to  others,  he  creates,  sustains,  and 
orders  all;  his  motive  in  relation  to  others  is  holy  love.  By  "personal 
spirit"  it  is  meant  that  God  is  " a  self-conscious  and  self-directing  mind.  "5 
"He  is  the  one  perfect  and  typical  person,  and  man,  as  yet,  possesses 
personality  only  in  a  rudimentary  and  imperfect  way,  as  a  growing 
gift  which  is  gradually  coming  toward  perfection."6  "Perfectly  good" 
means  all  possible  moral  excellence  of  God  in  the  human  sense  of  morality, 
as  Clarke  says,  "when  the  best  conception  of  moral  good  that  is  possible 
to  man  has  been  reached,  it  will  be  found  that  God  corresponds  to 
that  conception,  while  yet  he  transcends  it."7  By  "hol>  love"  is  meant 
"God's  desire  to  impart  himself  and  all  good  to  other  beings,  and  to 
possess  them  for  his  own  in  spiritual  fellowship."8  Omnipotence, 
omniscience,  and  omnipresence,  says  he,  are  implied  in  the  assertion 
that  God  creates,  sustains,  and  orders  all,  for  a  being  cannot  create  a 
universe,  sustain  it,  and  direct  it  to  an  end,  without  being  everywhere 
present  with  his  works,  knowing  all  things,  and  possessing  all  power.  "9 
From  the  creation  we  learn,  he  continues,  that  God  must  be  adequate 
to  all  its  needs,  in  power,  wisdom,  and  character.  "  God  must  be  the 
most  perfect  being  that  can  be  conceived."10  Wisdom  in  God  is  that 
quality  by  which  he  perfectly  understands  all  things,  and  knows  how  to 
accomplish  the  ends  that  his  character  suggests.11  Understanding 
holy  love  working  in  wisdom,  we  see  there  the  character  of  God.12 

Since  God  is  conceived  as  the  absolute  Being,  it  is  taken  for  granted 
that  omnipotence,  along  with  other  divine  attributes  such  as  omni- 
presence, omniscience,  and  perfect  goodness,  must  be  affirmed.  Virtually 

4  Samuel  Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  117. 
8  William  N.  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  68. 

6  Ibid.,  68. 

7  Ibid.,  69. 

8  Ibid.,  72. 

9  Ibid.,  74. 

10  Ibid.,  77. 

11  Ibid.,  101. 

12  Ibid.,  102. 


6  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

all  theologians  affirm  the  omnipotence  of  God  in  one  way  or  another. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  some  philosophical  writers,  such  as  James, 
McTaggart,  and  others,  have  recently  denied  omnipotence  in  any  form. 
Our  task  is  to  see  in  the  following  chapter  (Chapt.  II)  how  diversely 
the  divine  omnipotence  can  be  conceived  and  in  what  sense  it  is  affirmed 
by  current  theology.  After  having  accounted  for  various  definitions 
of  omnipotence,  we  shall  discuss,  chapter  by  chapter,  the  problems 
which  arise  in  the  affirmation  of  omnipotence  in  each  particular  sense, 
and  see  how  they  are  to  be  solved.  We  shall  see  whether  the  affirmation 
of  omnipotence  in  any  form  would  entangle  us  in  insoluble  mysteries 
(Chapts.  Ill- VII).  Finally,  if  we  are  to  deny  the  term  omnipotence 
as  empty  or  misleading,  we  must  see  what  kind  of  God  we  can  have 
without  the  idea  of  omnipotence.  This  would  be  a  definition  of  non- 
omnipotent  God  (Chapt.  VIII).  In  conclusion  we  shall  have  a  general 
resume  of  our  investigation  and  see  what  functional  value  is  involved 
in  the  affirmation  or  the  negation  of  omnipotence.  And  we  shall  indicate 
in  closing  the  current  tendency  in  the  conception  of  God  (Chapt.  IX). 


CHAPTER  II 
DEFINITION  OF  DIVINE  OMNIPOTENCE 

It  is  necessary,  as  was  indicated  in  the  last  chapter,  to  define  the 
concept  of  omnipotence  before  we  begin  the  discussion  of  the  problems. 
There  are  three  general  conceptions  of  omnipotence,  namely,  absolute 
or  transcendent  omnipotence,  pantheistic  or  immanent  omnipotence, 
and  modified  omnipotence.  The  first  two  are  generally  discarded  by 
modern  theologians,  the  first  as  absurd  and  the  second  as  insufficient. 
A  short  account  of  the  first  two  is  necessary  to  distinguish  them  from 
the  third  type  which  is  actually  current  in  the  present  day  theology. 

Absolute  or  Transcendent  Omnipotence 

By  absolute  power,  as  understood  by  certain  schoolmen  and  some 
of  the  later  philosophers,  is  meant  power  free  from  all  restraints 
even  those  of  reason  and  morality.  McTaggart  insists  that  the  term 
omnipotence  must  be  used  in  this  sense  of  absolute  power,  or  else  the 
concept  must  be  given  up  altogether.  "An  omnipotent  person," 
says  he,  "is  one  who  can  do  anything."1  McTaggart  has  no  difficulty 
in  showing  that  this  conception  is  untenable.  He  brings  forth  the  old 
subtle  question:  Could  God  create  a  being  of  such  a  nature  that  he 
could  not  subsequently  destroy  it?  Whatever  answer  we  make  to  this 
question,  says  he,  is  fatal  to  God's  omnipotence.  If  we  say  that  he 
could  not  create  such  a  being,  then  there  is  something  that  he  cannot 
do.  If  we  say  that  he  can  create  such  a  being,  then  there  is  still  some- 
thing that  he  cannot  do — to  follow  such  an  act  of  creation  by  an  act  of 
destruction.2  Again,  says  McTaggart,  if  God  cannot  do  things  logically 
contradictory,  he  cannot  be  omnipotent.  Supposing  that  man's  freedom 
involves  freedom  to  sin,  there  would  be  no  freedom  of  will  for  man,  if 
God  did  not  permit  sin.  So  it  is  urged  that  God  cannot  give  freedom 
to  man  by  restraining  him  at  the  same  time  from  doing  evil,  for  it  is 
logically  incompatible.  McTaggart  however  asserts  that  "even  if  the 
two  were  logically  contradictory,  a  really  omnipotent  being  cannot  be 
bound  by  the  law  of  contradiction.  If  it  seems  to  us  absurd  to  suggest 
that  the  law  of  contradiction  is  dependent  on  the  will  of  any  person, 
we  must  be  prepared  to  say  that  no  person  is  really  omnipotent."3 

1  J.  M.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  202. 

2  Ibid.,  204. 
Ubid.,  166. 


8  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

Omnipotence  with  McTaggart  must  mean  ability  even  to  do  logical 
impossibilities;  an  omnipotent  God  must  be  able  to  act  even  against 
his  own  nature.  If  God  is  a  god,  he  urges,  whose  nature  he  owes  to 
none  but  himself,  since  he  is  generally  supposed  to  be  the  uncreated 
creator  of  the  universe,  his  nature  must  also  be  subject  to  his  will. 

Most  theologians,  however,  maintain  that  God  has  a  determined 
nature,  and  the  inability  to  act  against  it  does  not  impair  his  omnipotence. 
Indeed  as  Augustine  says,  "God  is  omnipotent  and  yet  he  cannot  die, 
he  cannot  lie,  he  cannot  deny  himself.  How  is  he  omnipotent? 
He  is  omnipotent  for  the  very  reason  that  he  cannot  do  these  things. 
For  if  he  could  die  he  would  not  be  omnipotent."4  McTaggart's  in- 
sistance  on  the  true  meaning  of  omnipotence  to  be  a  power  to  do 
anything  whatever  indiscriminately  leads  us  to  absurdity  and  no 
theologians  of  today  hold  such  an  unqualified  conception  of  the 
divine  power. 

Pantheistic  or  Immanent  Omnipotence 

This  idea  is  another  extreme  example  of  defining  omnipotence. 
While  the  absolute  omnipotence  described  above  asserts  divine  trans- 
cendence, and  makes  God  irresponsible  for  consequent  contradictions 
and  absurdities,  pantheistic  omnipotence  simply  affirms  that  God  is 
the  direct  cause  of  everything  that  exists.  God  being  completely 
immanent  in  the  world  of  changing  phenomena,  everything  owes  its 
existence  to  God.  But  the  vitalizing  force  that  is  adequate  to  the  on- 
going of  this  infinite  universe  must  be  regarded  as  an  omnipotent  power. 
Thus  it  was  understood  by  Schleiermacher5  who  says  that  it  is  not  proper 
to  understand  God's  power  to  be  ability  to  do  what  he  pleases,  but  rather 
that  God  is  the  cause  of  all  that  is;  that  there  is  no  causality  in  God 
other  than  what  is  manifested.  There  is  no  reserved  causality. 

This  conception  is  unsatisfactory  to  most  theologians.  "This  hypo- 
thesis," says  H.  B.  Smith,  "rests  on  an  essentially  pantheistic  notion 
of  what  God  is;  that  all  that  exists  is  simply  an  emanation  from  Him, 
simply  evolution  of  his  nature.  This  is  contrary  to  the  very  idea  of 
rational,  intelligent,  and  independent  being."6  Genuine  theism,  says 
Sheldon,  asserting  as  it  does  the  transcendence  as  well  as  the  immanence 
of  God,  "must  hold  that  the  actual  is  not  the  full  measure  of  the  possible. 
Supposing  God  to  be  true  person,  it  is  perfectly  conceivable,  so  far  as 

4  Augustine,  De  Symbolo,  I,  1. 

5  Schleiermacher,  Der  Christliche  Glaube  No.  54. 
6H.  B.  Smith,  System  of  Christian  Theology,  33. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  9 

mere  power  is  concerned,  that  He  could  increase  the  sum  of  created 
being.  "7 

Modified  Omnipotence 

Since  the  conception  of  transcendent  omnipotence  leads  us  to  absurd- 
ity and  since  immanent  omnipotence  is  rejected  as  insufficient  for 
divine  perfection,  current  theology  proposes  to  navigate  safely  between 
Scylla  and  Charybdis  by  modifying  the  conception  to  meet  the  situation. 
It  tries  to  make  God  bigger  than  a  mere  cause  of  what  exists,  and  to 
explain  why  this  'bigger'  omnipotent  God  acts  in  limited  ways.  "God 
is  a  free  Spirit,"  says  Clarke,  "immanent,  as  always  in  the  universe,  and 
transcendent,  as  always  independent  of  its  limitations  and  able  to  act 
upon  it."8  Such  a  transcendent  yet  immanent  God  has  unlimited 
power  but  expresses  himself  in  limited  ways.  The  idea  of  omnipotence 
here  is  decidedly  modified  by  the  idea  of  God's  moral  and  rational  nature. 
We  may  distinguish  in  this  type  three  sets  of  definitions  not  essentially 
different  from  one  another  yet  not  quite  identical  since  they  put  the  more 
or  the  less  limitation  to  divine  omnipotence.  The  first  of  them 
approaches  absolute  omnipotence  as  its  upper  limit,  while  the  last 
of  them  is  near  to  immanent  omnipotence  as  its  lowest  limit. 

1.  Quasi  Absolute  Omnipotence.  Under  this  name  it  may  be  con- 
venient to  group  the  definitions  given  by  Hodge,  Shedd,  and  Strong. 
"We  can  do  very  little,"  says  Hodge,  "God  can  do  whatever  He  wills. 
We,  beyond  very  narrow  limits,  must  use  means  to  accomplish  our  ends. 
With  God  means  are  unnecessary.  He  wills  and  it  is  done.  He  said, 
Let  there  be  light;  and  there  was  light.  He  by  a  volition  created  the 
heavens  and  earth.  .  .  .  This  simple  idea  of  the  omnipotence  of  God, 
that  He  can  do  without  effort,  and  by  a  volition,  whatever  He  wills,  is 
the  highest  conceivable  idea  of  power.  "9  God  creates,  says  Shedd,  all 
things  from  eternity  by  one  act  of  power,  as  he  knows  all  things  from 
eternity  by  one  act  of  knowledge,  and  as  he  decrees  all  things  from 
eternity  by  one  act  of  will.10  The  divine  power  is  optional  in  its  exercise. 
God  need  not  have  created  anything.  And  after  creation,  he  may 
annihilate.  The  divine  power  is  not  to  be  measured  merely  by  what 
God  has  actually  effected.  Omnipotence  is  manifested  in  the  works  of 
the  actual  creation,  but  it  is  not  exhausted  by  them.11  Strong  defines 

7H.  C.  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  180. 
8W.  N.  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  180. 
9C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  407. 

10  W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  345. 

11  Ibid.,  359. 


10  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

omnipotence  as  the  power  of  God  to  do  all  things  which  are  objects  of 
power,  whether  with  or  without  the  use  of  means.12 

Accordingly,  the  divine  power  is  qualified  mainly  in  three  respects: 
(1)  Omnipotence  does  not  imply  power  to  do  that  which  is  not  an  object 
of  power;  for  example,  (a)  Doing  that  which  is  self-contradictory  such 
as  making  a  square  triangle,  or  the  making  of  a  past  event  not  to  have 
happened.  These  are  not  objects  of  power,  and  therefore  it  is  really  no 
limitation  of  the  divine  omnipotence  to  say  that  it  cannot  create  them. 
They  involve  the  absurdity  that  a  thing  can  be  and  not  be  at  the  same 
time.  "Logical  impossibility  is,  in  truth,  a  non-entity;  and  to  say  that 
God  cannot  create  a  non-entity,  is  not  a  limitation  or  denial  of  power, 
for  power  is  the  ability  to  create  entity.  "13  (b)  Again,  that  which  is 
contradictory  to  the  nature  of  God  is  not  an  object  of  power,  such  as 
for  instance,  to  lie,  to  sin,  to  die.  God  cannot  do  anything  inconsistent, 
says  Shedd,  with  the  perfection  of  the  divine  nature.  God  cannot  sin 
because  sin  is  imperfection,  and  it  is  contradictory  to  say  that  a  necessari- 
ly perfect  being  may  be  imperfect.14  Another  significant  point  which 
Strong  brings  out  is  this:  (2)  Omnipotence  does  not  imply  the  exercise 
of  all  his  power  on  the  part  of  God.  He  has  power  over  his  power;  in 
other  words,  his  power  is  under  the  control  of  "wise  and  holy  will." 
God  can  do  all  he  wills,  but  will  not  do  all  he  can.  Else  his  power  is 
mere  force  acting  necessarily,  and  God  is  the  slave  of  his  own  omnipotence. 
Another  point  of  no  less  importance  is  the  assertion  that  (3)  Omnipo- 
tence in  God  does  not  exclude  but  implies  the  power  of  self-limitation. 
Since  all  such  self-limitation  is  free,  says  Strong,  proceeding  from  neither 
external  nor  internal  compulsion,  it  is  the  act  and  manifestation  of 
God's  power.15 

According  to  this  definition,  God  has  a  nature  which  is  rational  and 
moral  in  the  human  sense  of  the  terms.  But  it  is  asserted  that  the  divine 
power  can  work  miracles  which  are  irrational  in  the  sense  that  they 
"suspend"  the  laws  of  nature  which  we  understand  to  be  logical  in  the 
human  sense.  Yet  in  defense  of  miracle  Hodge  says  that  nature  and 
its  laws  are  subject  to  God,  and  therefore  liable  at  any  time  to  be  sus- 
pended or  counteracted,  at  his  good  pleasure;  the  laws  of  nature  are 
uniform  only  because  he  so  wills,  and  their  uniformity  continues  only 

11  A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  286. 

11 W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  359. 

14  Ibid.,  360. 

18  A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  288. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  ll 

so  long  as  he  wills.16  Such  a  power  to  suspend  the  law  of  nature  as 
Hodge  asserts  seems  to  be  tantamount  to  an  absolute  omnipotence.  But 
since  absolute  omnipotence  involves  a  flagrant  absurdity  in  connection 
with  the  problems  to  be  discussed  later  on,  more  recent  theologians  are 
chary  of  asserting  even  this  quasi  absolute  omnipotence.  We  see  in  the 
following  two  groups  typical  definitions  of  modified  omnipotence  as 
actually  held  by  the  current  theology. 

2.  Deterministic  Omnipotence.  Under  this  name  we  may  designate 
the  definition  given  by  Brown;  that  given  by  Harris  perhaps  belongs 
also  to  this  category.  By  omnipotence  we  mean,  says  Brown,  that 
"  the  holy  and  loving  God  is  really  Lord  of  the  universe,  able  to  do  in  it 
all  things  which  his  character  and  purpose  may  suggest."17  There  is 
nothing  in  the  universe  as  such  which  can  prevent  the  working  out  of  the 
divine  plan.  God  is  not  hindered,  as  dualism  affirms,  by  any  foreign 
substance.  Man  cannot  prevent  the  execution  of  the  divine  plan,  nor 
can  sin  prevent  it.  Like  every  wise  and  consistent  person,  God  is 
"determined"  by  his  character.  It  is  morally  impossible  for  him  to  do 
anything  which  is  inconsistent  with  this.  God's  power,  says  Harris, 
is  inseparable  from  his  reason;  it  is  God,  the  absolute  reason,  who  himself 
is  energizing.  This  regulation  is  constitutive  in  the  sense  that  the 
principle  of  reason,  the  contradictories  of  which  are  absurd,  determines 
what  it  is  possible  for  power  to  effect.  It  is  also  ethical  in  the  sense 
that  God's  will  by  his  eternal  free  choice  is  in  harmony  with  his  reason 
in  perfect  love.18  Having  created  a  stone,  he  cannot  instruct  it  in 
knowledge,  nor  convince  it  by  argument,  nor  move  it  by  an  appeal  to 
compassion.  After  creating  man  a  free  agent,  he  must  act  on  him,  if 
at  all,  as  a  free  agent,  by  influences  adapted  to  a  rational  free  will.  He 
cannot  change  his  will  by  almightiness  any  more  than  he  can  move  a 
stone  by  eloquence.19 

But  this  regulation  of  almighty  power  by  reason,  says  Harris,  implies 
no  limitation  of  God.  Instead  of  being  a  limitation  or  defect,  it  reveals 
the  perfection  of  God  as  the  absolute  Reason.  "If  we  regard  God," 
he  continues,  "merely  as  the  Almighty,  he  has  power  to  do  wrong,  if 
he  should  so  will.  Free  will  implies  power  to  do  wrong  or  to  do  right. 
But  God  is  not  mere  almighty  power.  .  .  .  That  which  makes  it  impos- 

18  C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  620. 

17  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  116. 
»S.  Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  179. 

19  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  181. 


12  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

sible  for  God  to  do  wrong  is  not  lack  of  power,  but  his  eternal  self-deter- 
mination in  love  in  accordance  with  the  principles  and  laws  of  reason.20 

As  we  have  seen  in  the  definition  by  Brown,  God  has  a  determined 
character  which  is  intellectually  wise,  emotionally  loving,  and  volitionally 
holy.21  God,  it  is  asserted,  not  only  does  not,  as  is  asserted  in  the  theory 
of  quasi  absolute  omnipotence,  but  he  even  can  not,  act  against  his  char- 
acter. This  is  determined  by  his  nature,  and  he  cannot  change  it  by 
his  will.  God  by  almighty  power,  says  Harris,  cannot  change  the  eternal 
principles,  laws,  and  ideals  of  reason.22  The  sovereignty  of  God  does  not 
imply  that  God's  will  is  his  law.  "His  will  is  subject  in  all  his  action 
to  reason  and  regulated  by  it;  therefore  all  the  exercise  of  his  power  is 
in  free  will  under  the  eternal  law  of  reason."23  Will-power  reigning  su- 
preme above  all  law,  imposing  its  own  arbitrary  and  capricious  commands 
and  compelling  conformity  with  them  by  resistless  force,  is  the  essence 
of  despotism  and  tyranny.24  It  is  clear,  according  to  Harris,  that 
divine  law  is  not  different  in  kind  from  the  natural  law  and  moral  law 
which  man  knows,  nor  is  the  divine  character  different  in  kind  from  the 
human  in  its  rational  and  moral  aspects.25 

God's  omnipotence  is  thus  more  closely  limited  by  his  own  logical 
and  ethical  nature  than  in  the  theory  of  quasi  absolute  omnipotence, 
since  the  divine  law  which  is  an  expression  or  part  of  his  nature  is  not 
considered  to  be  subject  to  change  according  to  his  free  will.  God  is 
a  determined  being,  not  free  in  the  indeterminist  sense  of  the  word, 
although  Harris  and  Brown  do  not  hesitate  to  assert  devine  freedom  in 
their  own  way,  that  is,  in  the  deterministic  sense.  It  might  seem  that 
God  cannot  be  the  absolute,  "the  unconditioned  and  all-conditioning," 
if  he  is  under  law  and  obeys  law.  But  this  objection,  says  Harris,  would 
only  be  valid  if  the  law  were  independent  of  God  and  imposed  on  him 
from  without,  but  "obeying  law  he  is  not  conditioned  by  any  being 
independent  of  himself,  but  God  finds  the  law  in  himself  and  obeys  it.  "26 
God  has,  that  is  to  say,  a  given  nature  to  which  his  own  will  must  conform 
but  as  it  is  his  own  self-existent  nature  God  is  not  supposed  to  be  really 
limited  by  anything  whatever. 

"Harris,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  221. 

21 W.   A.   Brown,   Christian   Theology  in  Outline,    105. 

22  Harris,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  531. 

23  Ibid.,  533. 
"Ibid.,  534. 

25  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  142. 

26  Ibid.,  184. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  13 

3.  Creative  Omnipotence.  This  definition  does  not  really  differ 
from  the  former  in  content  but  has  a  different  approach.  The  former 
starts  from  the  determined  nature  and  definite  character  of  God,  while 
the  latter  starts  from  the  creative  ability  of  God.  Clarke  gives  a  typical 
definition  with  which  Curtis  and  Sheldon  virtually  agree.  The  Almighty, 
says  Clarke,  is  not  merely  the  all-Strong,  but  rather  the  all-Master, 
the  strong  Lord  of  all.  In  his  mastership  is  of  course  implied  power 
sufficient  for  such  a  relation,  yet  apparently  the  sufficiency  of  power 
was  inferred  from  the  universal  control,  rather  than  the  universal  control 
from  the  sufficiency  of  power.27  An  abstract  conception  of  boundless 
might  is  far  less  effective  in  its  greatness  than  recognition  of  the  living 
God  as  acting  upon  all  as  Master,  and  using  all  power  that  his  work 
upon  so  vast  a  universe  requires.  "So  omnipotence,  in  Christian  doc- 
trine, is  adequate  ability.  It  is  the  sufficiency  of  God.  .  .  .God  as  a 
transcendent  being  is  greater  than  his  universe,  and  the  whole  of  his 
power  is  not  exhausted  or  required  by  its  demands.  He  is  adequate 
to  more  than  he  is  doing."28 

As  to  the  limits  set  to  the  divine  power,  says  Clarke,  omnipotence 
does  not  enable  God  to  do  what  is  intrinsically  contradictory,  or  what 
is  irrational,  or  what  is  wrong  and  unworthy  of  him.  To  make  an 
old  man  in  a  minute  is  impossible,  because  irrational.  He  cannot  make 
it  well  with  the  wicked  while  they  remain  wicked,  because  wickedness 
and  well-being  necessarily  exclude  each  other,  and  an  effort  to  combine 
them  would  be  unworthy  of  God.  And  omnipotence  does  not  include 
the  power  to  do  them.  We  may  call  this,  says  Clarke,  a  limitation  if 
we  wish,  but  it  is  better  not  to  regard  it  so.  The  true  idea  of  omnipo- 
tence is  that  of  "adequate  ability" — power  adequate  to  do  all  works  that 
express  his  nature  and  sufficient  for  his  universe.  God  cannot  do  wrong. 
This  is  true;  but  it  should  here  be  added  that  God's  inability  to  do  wrong 
resides  in  his  character.  It  is  the  nature  of  his  power  to  work  in  perfect 
unison  with  his  character,  and  his  character  is  such  that  his  power  can 
never  be  misused,  or  turned  to  unworthy  action.29  God  is  said  to  act 
always  in  consistency  with  his  holy  and  loving  character.  While  there 
is  nothing  like  mechanical  determination,  says  Sheldon,  the  will  of  God 
finds  its  perfect  standard  in  his  intellectual  and  ethical  nature.  It  is 
the  requirement  of  harmony  and  self-consistency  that  the  will  should 
always  follow  this  standard.  The  ground  of  moral  and  rational  being 

"  W.  N.  Clarke,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,  351. 

28  Ibid.,  352. 

29  W.  N.  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  87. 


14  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

is  given  us;  nevertheless  we  are  not  actually  rational  and  moral  persons 
apart  from  will  or  self-determination  in  rational  and  moral  lives.  The 
same  is  true  of  God.30 

Clarke  also,  like  Harris,  sets  another  limit  to  God's  exercise  of  power. 
"God  exercises  direct  control  throughout  the  universe,"  says  he,  "save 
as  he  has  set  off  spiritual  beings  with  a  certain  independence."  God 
has  created  free  agents  to  whom  he  has  given  a  certain  power  to  do  their 
own  will,  even  though  it  be  opposed  to  him.  "By  such  creative  action 
God  has  limited  himself."31 

According  to  this  definition  of  omnipotence  as  with  the  preceding 
one,  God's  power  of  working  miracles  does  not  interfere  with  natural 
law  or  divine  character.  With  Brown  miracles  are  merely  extraordinary 
events.32  Miracles,  says  Clarke,  appear  supernatural  to  men  but  per- 
fectly natural  to  God,  being  normal,  rational,  and  intelligible.33  When 
God  so  wills,  says  Curtis,  beyond  his  habit  that  his  volition  is  contrary 
to  his  habit;  when  the  ordinary  volition  is  not  only  outclassed  but  actually 
held  in  abeyance;  when  the  habit  must  yield  to  make  way  for  the  extra- 
ordinary volition — then  the  result  is  a  miracle.34  Sheldon  holds  that 
freedom  and  power  supply  the  necessary  conditions  of  miracles.  Mira- 
cles are  simply  God's  free  activity  within  natural  law.35  Miracle  thus 
defined  as  God's  free  creative  act  is  an  expression36  as  well  as  a  proof37  of 
divine  omnipotence.  Now,  since  the  creation  of  the  universe  itself  is 
the  supreme  proof  and  the  actual  content  of  the  exercise  of  divine  omni- 
potence, let  us  see  how  the  creation  of  the  universe  and  its  purpose  are 
conceived  by  those  theologians  who  espouse  the  modified  omnipotence' 

4.  Creation  as  Main  Content  of  Divine  Omnipotence.  (1)  Crea- 
tion. The  manifestations  of  divine  power,  says  Shedd,  are  seen  in 
Providence  and  Redemption  as  well,  but  most  prominently  in  Creation. 
"The  peculiar  characteristic  of  this  exertion  of  power  is,  that  it  originates 
ex  nihilo.38  By  creation,  says  Strong,  we  mean  that  free  act  of  God  by 
which  in  the  beginning  for  his  own  glory  he  made,  without  the  use  of 

30  H.  C.  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  191. 
31 W.  N.  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  137. 

32  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  223  &  226. 

33  W.  N.  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  133. 

34  O.  A.   Curtis,   The  Christian  Faith,   166. 

35  H.  C.  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  105. 
38  W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  361. 
87  H.  B.  Smith,  System  of  Christian  Theology,  33. 

38  W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  361. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  15 

preexistent  materials,  the  whole  visible  and  invisible  universe.39  Crea- 
tion is  not  "  producing  out  of  nothing"  as  if  "  no  thing"  were  a  substance 
out  of  which  " something"  could  be  formed.  The  axiom  of  ex  nihilo 
nihil  fit,  says  Hodge,  is  not  interfered  with  in  God's  creation  ex  nihilo. 
For  "the  doctrine  of  creation  does  not  suppose  that  the  world  exists 
without  a  cause,  or  comes  from  nothing.  It  assigns  a  perfectly  adequate 
cause  for  its  existence  in  the  will  of  an  almighty  intelligent  Being."40 
It  is  not  a  fashioning  of  preexistent  materials,  nor  an  emanation  from 
the  substance  of  Deity,  but  is  a  making  of  that  to  exist  which  once  did 
not  exist,  either  in  form  or  substance.41  As  to  the  proof,  says  Strong, 
physical  science  can  observe  and  record  changes,  but  it  knows  nothing 
of  origins;  nor  can  reason  absolutely  disprove  the  eternity  of  matter. 
For  proof  ot  the  doctrine  of  creation,  therefore,  says  Strong,  we  rely 
wholly  upon  Scripture.42 

As  already  referred  to,  the  doctrine  of  creation  necessarily  rejects 
dualism  and  emanationism.  Dualism  holds  to  two  self-existent  princi- 
ples, God  and  devil  or  matter.  With  regard  to  this  view,  Strong  says 
that  it  contradicts  our  fundamental  notion  of  God  as  absolute  sovereign 
to  suppose  the  existence  of  any  other  being  or  substance  to  be  independ- 
ent of  his  will.43  The  emanation  theory  holds  that  the  universe  is  of 
the  same  substance  with  God,  and  is  the  product  of  successive  evolutions 
from  his  being.  Strong  makes  objection  to  it  on  the  following  grounds: 
(a)  It  virtually  denies  the  infinity  and  transcendence  of  God,  by  apply- 
ing to  him  a  principle  of  evolution,  growth,  and  progress  which  belongs 
to  the  finite  and  imperfect,  (b)  It  contradicts  the  divine  holiness, 
"since  man,  who  by  the  theory  is  of  the  substance  of  God,  is  nevertheless 
morally  evil."44  Whether  creationism  can  escape  the  same  objection 
which  its  adherent  makes  against  emantionism  is  a  problem,  but  as  it 
will  be  fully  treated  later  on,  let  us  quote  another  example  of  creationism 
from  a  modest  asserter  of  it.  By  creation,  says  Brown,  we  mean  that 
the  universe  in  which  we  dwell  owes  its  origin  to  the  intelligent  and 
deliberate  action  of  God.45  The  philosophical  question  of  the  nature  of 
creation,  says  he,  is  of  little  interest  to  Christian  fa  ith,  but  "the  re 
significance  of  the  doctrine  of  creation  ex  nihilo  to  the  Christian  is  to  e 

39  A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  371. 

40  C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  562. 

41  A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  372. 

42  Ibid.,  374. 
"Ibid.,  381. 
44  Ibid.,  383. 

46  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  211. 


16  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

found  in  its  denial  of  such  theories  (dualistic  or  emanistic)  as  are  incon- 
sistent either  with  the  real  existence  of  the  universe  for  God  or  with  its 
complete  dependence  upon  God."46  Brown  believes  the  ex  nihilo 
conception  of  creator  is  demanded  by  the  sense  of  our  absolute  dependence 
on  him,  but  his  conception  of  creation,  unlike  that  of  Hodge  and  Strong, 
is  that  of  an  evolutionary  process  ever  going  on  with  its  divine  ideal  of 
perfection.47 

(2)  Aim  of  Creation.  Theologians  who  propose  the  conception  of 
modified  omnipotence  affirm  at  the  same  time  God's  creation  of  the 
universe  ex  nihilo.  God  has  created  the  universe  with  his  absolute 
power  only  limited  by  his  own  moral  and  rational  nature,  absolutely 
independent  of  any  external  power  or  being.  We  shall  later  see  the 
logical  outcome  of  such  an  absolute  creative  act,  when  we  discuss  the 
problems  involved  in  the  assertion  of  divine  omnipotence,  but  to  make 
the  situation  more  clear,  we  will  briefly  show  the  purpose  of  creation  as 
conceived  differently  by  different  theologians  in  accordance  with  their 
characteristic  definitions  of  omnipotence. 

(A)  Those  who  hold  to  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  affirm  that  the 
purpose  of  creation  is  the  glory  of  God.  "The  glory  of  God,  the  mani- 
festation of  his  perfection, "  says  Hodge,  "  is  the  last  end  of  all  his  works. " 
The  common  objection  that  this  doctrine  represents  God  as  self-seeking 
is  answered  by  saying  that  God,  as  infinitely  wise  and  good,  seeks  the 
highest  end;  and  "as  all  creatures  are  as  the  dust  of  the  balance  compared 
to  Him,  it  follows  that  his  glory  is  an  infinitely  higher  end  than  anything 
that  concerns  them  exclusively."48  The  happiness  of  a  creature,  says 
Shedd,  cannot  be  the  final  end  of  God's  action.  There  would  be  no 
wisdom  in  this  case,  because  the  superior  would  be  subordinated  to  the 
inferior.49  Strong  also  asserts  that  God's  own  glory  is  God's  supreme 
end  in  creation,  arguing  as  follows:  (a)  God's  own  glory  is  the  only 
good  actually  and  perfectly  attained  in  the  universe;  (b)  The  good  of 
creatures  is  of  insignificant  importance  compared  with  this;  (c)  If 
anything  in  the  creature  is  the  last  end  of  God,  God  is  dependent  upon 
the  creature;  (d)  The  interest  of  the  universe  are  bound  up  in  the  interests 
of  God.  It  is  therefore  not  selfishness,  but  benevolence,  for  God  to 
make  his  own  glory  the  supreme  object  of  creation.50 

48  Brown,  Op.  cit.,  213. 

"Ibid.,   214. 

48  C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  567. 

49  W.  G.  T.  Shedd,  Dogmatic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  357. 
80  A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  400. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  17 

(B)  Others  who  entertain  the  more  modified  conception  of  omni- 
potence also  assert  the  purpose  of  creation  to  be  God's  own  glory  in 
relation  to  his  creatures,  but  they  include  the  idea  of  love  along  with 
the  idea  of  glory.  God  is  not  impelled,  says  Harris,  to  act  by  any  want, 
but  by  pure,  disinterested  love.  He  acts,  not  to  supply  his  need,  but  to 
pour  out  of  his  overflowing  fulness  in  blessing.  All  rational  action  is 
for  some  rational  end.  What  then  is  the  rational  end  which  God  pro- 
poses to  accomplish  by  the  action  of  his  love  in  creating,  developing, 
and  governing  the  universe?  God  does  all  things  for  his  own  glory. 
The  glory  of  God  is  his  perfections  and  his  action  expressing  them, 
considered  as  making  him  worthy  of  the  esteem  and  approval  of  himself 
and  of  rational  beings.61  Hence  God  glorifies  himself  in  dealings  with 
his  rational  creatures.  "He  glorifies  himself  in  sinners  by  exercising 
his  perfections  in  all  his  treatment  of  them.  He  will  act  towards  them 
in  perfect  wisdom,  righteousness,  and  goodwill."52  But  sinners  per- 
sisting in  sin  will  lose  the  possibility  of  redemption.  "  God  has  constituted 
the  universe  according  to  the  law  of  love.  Therefore  it  is  forever  im- 
possible that  a  person  be  blessed  who  has  isolated  himself  in  selfishness 
and  alienated  himself  from  God  "53  Thus  in  the  punishment  of  sin 
also  God  declares  his  glory  in  the  exercise  of  his  righteousness.  "The 
motive  of  creation,"  says  Sheldon,  "like  that  of  all  divine  acts,  is  to  be 
sought  in  the  moral  nature  of  God,  which  has  been  defined  as  holy  love. 
It  was  necessary  for  Him  to  create  only  as  it  is  necessary  for  a  generous 
spirit  to  do  generous  deeds."54  It  is  inherent,  says  Curtis,  in  the  very 
nature  of  personality  to  seek  objective  expression.55  The  initial  thrust 
for  any  great  creative  work  is  the  personal  longing  for  self-expression.68 
So  it  is  held  by  Curtis  that  the  divine  motive  of  creation  was  to  express 
his  moral  love  in  a  "brotherhood  of  moral  persons."57  Thus  we  see 
recent  theologians  lay  more  emphasis  on  the  aspect  of  divine  love  rather 
than  glory. 

Summary 

No  theologians,  as  we  have  seen,  assert  absolute  omnipotence  in 
the  sense  that  God  can  do  anything  whatever,  even  such  a  contradiction 

61  S.  Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  491,  494. 

82  Ibid.,  503. 

"  Ibid.,  504. 

54  H.  C.  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  236. 

68  O.  A.  Curtis,  The  Christian  Faith,  193. 

"Ibid.,   194. 

87  Ibid.,  195. 


18  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

as  to  make  and  unmake  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time.  If  omnipotence 
had  to  mean  a  power  to  remake  even  the  law  of  contradiction  to  suit  the 
situation,  as  McTaggart  insists,  God  should  be  able  to  dstroy  himself 
and  restore  himself  again.  Such  a  god  may  indeed  be  possible  but 
only  as  a  characterless  monster  and  blind  power.  The  omnipotence  in 
which  theologians  generally  believe  is  modified  in  relation  to  another 
important  attribute  of  God,  namely,  his  moral  and  rational  nature. 
God  as  creator,  sustainer,  and  governor  of  the  universe  is  able  to  do  in 
it  all  things  which  his  character  and  purpose  may  suggest  (Brown),  no 
matter  whether  he  uses  means  or  not  towards  the  realization  of  his 
aim  (Strong).  Indeed,  if  God  cannot  create  an  old  man  at  once,  as 
Clarke  pointed  out,  his  using  means  to  realize  his  ends  must  be  an  ordi- 
nary method  of  procedure,  but  such  a  theologian  as  Hodge  strictly 
adheres  to  the  idea  that  means  are  not  necessary  for  God,  as  he  asserts 
that  "God  wills  and  it  is  done."  Hodge  and  Strong,  however,  agree 
in  saying  that  God  as  a  wise  and  self-consistent  person  controls  his 
power  with  his  holy  will;  and  so  he  can  do  all  he  wills,  but  he  will  not 
do  all  he  can.  Else  his  power  is  merely  an  impersonal  force  acting 
necessarily  in  spite  of  his  will  and  God  would  then  be  a  slave  of  his  own 
omnipotence.  More  recent  authors  such  as  Brown  and  Clarke  are 
more  reserved  in  affirming  the  divine  omnipotence.  God  is  determined, 
as  Brown  says,  by  his  character,  just  as  a  wise  and  consistent  human 
personality.  Hence  it  is  morally  and  logically  impossible  for  him  to  do 
anything  that  is  immoral  and  irrational  in  the  human  sense  of  the  words. 
Brown  goes  even  so  far  as  to  say  that  omnipotence  does  not  mean  that 
God  can  do  anything  whatever;  that  there  is  no  standard,  external  or 
internal,  to  which  he  must  conform.58  If  this  is  so  and  there  is  an  external 
standard  for  God  to  follow,  he  should  be  called  finite  rather  than  absolute, 
non-omnipotent  rather  than  omnipotent.  But  Brown  does  not  mean 
by  " external"  standard  anything  foreign  to  the  divine  nature,  as  he 
says  that  God  is  not  hindered  by  any  foreign  substance  as  dualism 
affirms.  Hence  we  must  conclude  that  theologians  generally  assert 
omnipotence  in  the  modified  sense  that  the  divine  power  is  not  limited 
by  any  external  power  independent  of  God,  and  that  all  the  obstacles 
there  can  be  for  him  are  simply  due  to  his  own  moral  and  rational  nature 
and  to  self-limitations.  Such  limitations  due  to  his  own  nature  and 
will,  say  they,  should  not  be  regarded  as  limitations,  and  so  they  believe 
they  can  rightly  affirm  the  divine  omnipotence  though  in  a  modified 

88  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  116. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  19 

sense.  Yet  we  must  remember  in  fine  that  God  who  exercises  his  "ade- 
quate ability"  as  Clarke  puts  it,  in  creating,  sustaining,  and  ordering 
things,  is,  in  spite  of  his  modified  omnipotence,  the  sole  and  absolute 
author  of  the  universe,  not  using  any  foreign  materials  preexistent,  but 
with  a  purpose,  as  we  have  seen,  either  for  glory  or  for  love. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVOLUTION  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 
Problem 

(1)  General  Survey.    Our  world  is  a  world  of  change,  of  evolution, 
either  for  better  or  for  worse  or  with  no  definite  direction.     If  it  is 
changing  into  a  better  world,  it  is  not  as  yet  the  best  possible  world. 
But  if  there  is  an  omnipotent  God  in  control,  why  is  it  not  made  the 
best  possible  world  at  once;  why  is  there  as  it  appears  a  gradual  growth? 
Or  if  it  is  deteriorating,  this  would  make  it  necessary  to  deny  either  the 
goodness  or  the  omnipotence  of   God, 

For  those  who  deny  the  fact  of  evolution  as  does  Hodge  there  is  no 
problem  at  all.  Hodge  repudiates  the  theory  of  evolution  because  it 
refers,  says  he,  "to  physical  causes  what  all  theists  believe  to  be  due 
to  the  operations  of  the  Divine  Mind.  "l  On  the  other  hand,  those  who 
hold  the  conception  of  modified  omnipotence,  as  do  Sheldon,  Brown, 
and  others,  do  not  recognize  a  serious  problem  either,  since  they  have 
defined  God  to  be  acting  in  limited  ways  according  to  his  definite  moral 
and  rational  character.  "God's  method,"  says  Brown,  "is  a  method 
of  progress,  of  growth,  of  development  from  the  less  to  the  more  perfect 
according  to  an  ideal  determined  from  the  first."2  "Reason  sees," 
says  Harris,  "not  only  that  the  rational  ideal  eternal  in  God  is  the 
fundamental  reality,  but  also  that  the  realization  of  it  in  the  finite  and 
the  revelation  of  God  therein  must  be  progressive.  The  absolute  Spirit 
cannot  make  a  complete  revelation  of  himself  and  exhaust  his  resources 
within  any  limits  of  space  and  time.  .  .  .  God,  ever  immanent  in  the 
universe,  causes  and  directs  its  evolution."3 

(2)  The  Conception  of  Evolution.    Before  we  discuss  the  problem 
in  detail  let  us  see  what  is  meant  by  evolution  in  the  theological  sense, 
since  the  scientific  doctrine  of  evolution  is  sometimes  supposed  to  deal 
a  death  blow  to  the  theistic  ideas.    We  do  not  propose  here  to  discuss 
the  relation  of  theism  as  to  the  fact  of  evolution,  but  we  will  simply 
give  a  few  examples  of  a  theological  account  of  evolution  by  recent 
writers.    The  prevalent  view  among  the  18th  century  biologists  and 
philosophers,  says  James  Ward,  was  the  conception  that  an  organism 

1  C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  II,  16. 

2W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  218. 

3  S.  Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  22. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  21 

was  regarded  to  be  in  the  process  of  unfolding  that  which  is  completely 
preexisting  in  miniature  within  the  germ.  But  now  this  theory  is  all 
but  superseded  by  the  very  different  theory  of  epigenesis  or  new  forma- 
tion. "According  to  this  later  theory,"  he  continues,  "each  new  organ- 
ism is  not  an  'educt'  but  a  'product'.  ...  Its  parts  are  in  no  sense 
present  in  the  embryo  but  are  gradually  organized,  one  after  another 
in  due  order  as  the  term  epigenesis  implies, — it  is  now  known  too  that 
in  this  progressive  integration  the  individual  retraces  the  main  stages 
through  which  the  species  had  advanced:  as  Haeckel  in  technical 
language  concisely  puts  it:  Ontogeny  recapitulates  phylogeny."4 
Here  all  is  history,  the  result  of  effort,  trial  and  error,  here  we  have  ad- 
venture and  ultimate  achievement.  The  preformation  theory  on  the 
other  hand  is  only  compatible  with  a  singularistic  or  as  Prof.  James  has 
called  it,  a  "block  universe"  in  which 

"With  earth's  first  clay  they  did  the  last  man  knead 

And  then  of  the  last  harvest  sowed  the  seed : 

On  the  first  morning  of  creation  wrote 

What  the  last  dawn  of  reckoning  shall  read. " 

This  theory  of  preformation,  a  corollary  to  Leibniz's  doctrine  of  pre- 
established  harmony,  is,  says  Ward,  the  only  theory  of  evolution  which 
deserves  the  name  in  its  original  sense  of  "development"  or  "unfolding"5 
as  in  Hegel's  idea  of  Entwickelung*  But  evolution  for  the  pluralist  in 
current  thought,  says  Ward,  is  not  merely  the  unfolding  of  what  is  con- 
tained in  the  germ  but  it  is  a  development  of  a  new  thing,  a  new  life 
through  a  creative  synthesis  of  diverse  factors.  Of  such  synthesis 
experience  furnishes  instances  at  every  turn.  The  timbre  of  a  musical 
note  is  more  than  the  sum  of  its  constituent  tones:  a  melody  more 
than  the  sum  of  its  separate  notes.7  For  traditional  theism,  evolution 
is  literally  the  mere  unfolding  or  expansion  of  what  is  implicitly  present 
from  the  first;  in  creating  the  world  God  is  held  to  know  and  ordain  all 
that  from  our  temporal  standpoint  is  yet  to  be.8  So  Ward  contrasts 
the  idea  of  evolution  in  the  scientific  sense  of  epigenesis  or  creative 
synthesis  with  that  of  traditional  theism.9  But  in  its  proper  scientific 
sense,  says  Sheldon,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  does  not  at  all  preclude  a 
theistic  conception  of  creation.  It  simply  affirms  within  nature  a 

4J.  Ward,   The  Realm  of  Ends,  99. 
5  Ibid.,   100. 

"Hegel,  Logic,  trans,  by  Wallace,  289. 
7J.   Ward,    The  Realm   of  Ends,    104. 

8  Ibid.,  109. 

9  Ibid.,  268. 


22  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

process  which  culminates  in  the  highest  forms  of  organic  life,  and  leaves 
us  perfectly  free  to  reason  respecting  the  agent  back  of  the  process.10 

(3)  The  Theistic  Interpretation  of  the  Fact  of  Evolution.  Evolution 
as  a  scientific  fact  is  well  established,  but  as  to  the  interpretation  of  its 
ultimate  nature  scholars  differ  among  themselves,  some  affirming,  others 
denying,  the  divine  causation  of  it  all.  Ward,  who  tells  us  that  evolution 
meant  to  the  traditional  theist  only  the  unfolding  of  things  preformed, 
includes  in  his  own  theism  the  claims  of  the  pluralist  and  interprets  the 
fact  of  epigenesis  as  causally  connected  with  the  divine  initiative.  "  Evo- 
lution as  a  theory  of  natural  science,"  says  Curtis,  "aiming  to  furnish 
an  account  of  phenomenal  relations  in  nature,  I  can  receive;  but  evolution 
as  metaphysics,  aiming  to  furnish  a  philosophy  of  causation,  I  must 
reject  as  utterly  superficial  and  unconvincing."  Thus  theologians 
are  generally  chary  of  recognizing  a  thoroughgoing  evolutionism  or 
epigenesis,  but  they  always  posit  back  of  the  evolutionary  process  the 
divine  causation  directly  or  indirectly  acting  upon  all  things,  no  matter 
how  variously  the  facts  of  evolution  may  be  interpreted. 

"The  idea  of  evolution,"  says  Brown,  "dominates  every  department  of  modern 
thought  and  life.  The  astronomer  conceives  the  physical  universe  as  slowly  evolving 
from  a  formless  chaos  into  the  system  of  suns  and  planets  which  fill  our  heavens.  The 
biologist  applies  the  same  law  to  the  organic  world,  and  regards  the  more  complex 
and  highly  developed  forms  of  life  as  having  slowly  developed  from  the  simpler.  The 
historian  writes  the  story  of  humanity  as  a  gradual  emergence  from  barbarism  into 
civilization.  £\Ve  think  of  God  as  ever  at  work,  forming,  transforming,  and  perfecting 
the  moral  personalities  whom  he  has  designed  for  union  with  himself.  In  the  gradual 
development  which  science  recognizes,  from  the  lower  forms  to  the  higher,  from  the 
more  simple  to  the  more  complex,  we  see  the  slow  unfolding  of  God's  providential 
plan  for  the  realization  of  the  Kingdom.  Progress,  however,  is  possible  only  because 
some  advance  faster  than  others,  and  breaking  away  from  the  prevailing  type,  set 
new  standards  both  of  thought  and  life,  to  which  others  are  later  brought  to  con- 
form."11 

The  mystery  of  new  beginnings  which  are  a  fact  for  the  evolutionist 
requires  for  its  explanation  "the  initiative  of  a  living,  a  personal  and 
holy  God."  To  unite  old  elements,  says  Brown,  into  that  which  con- 
sciousness recognizes  as  new  is  as  much  an  act  of  creation  as  to  form 
from  nothing  the  original  elements  themselves;  and  this  is  what  God  is 
doing  all  the  time.  Yet  progress  involves  retrogression  and  the  principle 
of  conflict.  "Both  in  biology  and  in  ethics,  degeneration  and  decay 
are  familiar  facts.  Progress  takes  place  through  a  struggle  against 
obstacles,  with  the  possibility  of  defeat  or  failure  for  those  who  fail  to 
stand  the  test."12 

10  H.   C.   Sheldon,   System  of  Christian  Doctrine,   237. 

11  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  218  ff. 

12  Ibid.,    220. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  23 

(4)  The  Problem  of  Evolution  and  Divine  Omnipotence.  The  facts 
of  evolution  as  we  see  here  involve  the  problems  of  conflict  and  suffering, 
of  struggle  for  existence  and  elimination  of  the  weak,  and  of  success  of 
a  few  and  sacrifice  of  the  many.  But  if  God  is  supremely  good  and  omni- 
potent, and  he  is  the  ultimate  cause  of  evolution,  why  is  it  not  a  smooth 
affair,  worthy  of  his  perfection?  If  God  is  perfectly  powerful  and  good, 
why  can  he  not  dispense  at  once  with  this  tedious  process  of  evolution 
which  involves  conflict  and  strife,  defeat  and  destruction,  failure  and 
waste?  But  the  fact  that  these  exist  seems  to  reflect  the  character  of 
the  creative  power  behind  them.  If  God  is  so  limited  in  power  that  he 
cannot  make  the  course  of  evolution  perfectly  consistent  with  his  good 
will,  the  presence  of  conflict  and  strife,  defeat  and  waste  on  the  part  of 
creatures  may  be  explained  without  infringing  upon  the  moral  character 
of  God.  But  if  we  affirm  the  divine  omnipotence  at  all,  how  can  we  ac- 
count for  the  phenomena  of  evolution  which  involves  so  much  of  a  sinister 
aspect?  Is  it  not  better  to  conceive  of  God  like  ourselves,  as  Johnson 
says,  beset  with  limitations  over  which  he  triumphs  by  the  use  of  infinitely 
varied  appliances  and  adjustments?13  We  will  discuss  the  problem  in 
three  ways  in  the  following  sections  according  to  the  different  types 
of  omnipotence. 

Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem 

1.  Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Absolute 
Omnipotence.  Since  no  theologians  assert  absolute  omnipotence,  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  proposed  solution  of  the  problem  of 
evolution  is  merely  speculative.  Hence  this  solution  is  a  negative  one, 
and  it  is  sufficient  to  see  that  the  facts  of  evolution  are  totally  irrecon- 
cilable with  the  divine  absoluteness. 

(1)  Monistic  Absolutism.  Suppose  that  we  could  identify  Bradley 's 
Absolute  with  the  God  of  theology.  Let  us  assume  that  God  is  such  a 
being  as  Bradley 's  Absolute,  the  Whole,  the  One,  perfect  and  complete 
in  every  way. 

"This  one  Reality  of  existence,"  says  he,  "can,  as  such,  nowhere  exist  among 
phenomena.  And  it  enters  into,  but  is  itself  incapable,  of  evolution  and  progress.  .  . 
There  is  of  course  progress  in  the  world,  and  there  is  also  retrogression,  but  we  cannot 
think  that  the  Whole  either  moves  on  or  backwards.  The  Absolute  has  no  history 
of  its  own,  though  it  contains  histories  without  number.  .  .  .  And  the  question 
whether  the  history  of  a  man  or  a  world  is  going  forwards  or  back  does  not  belong  to 
metaphysics.  For  nothing  perfect,  nothing  genuinely  real,  can  move."14  "If  you 

13  F.  H.  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  87. 

14  F.  H.  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  499  ff. 


24  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

are  to  be  perfect,"  urges  he,  "then  you,  as  such,  must  be  resolved  and  cease;  and 
endless  progress  sounds  merely  like  an  attempt  indefinitely  to  put  off  perfection.  And 
as  a  function  of  the  perfect  universe,  on  the  other  hand,  you  are  perfect  already."15 
If  such  a  conception  of  the  universe  is  held  we  are  compelled  to  deny  the 
fact  of  evolution  and  progress  so  far  as  God  is  concerned  and  to  regard 
evolution  as  a  finite  view  of  things  merely  phenomenal.  Bradley  holds 
that  there  is  no  single  irreversible  direction  in  the  time  series  as  a  whole, 
but  that  the  change  and  succession  involved  in  the  idea  of  duration  fall 
only  in  the  finite  perception  of  the  different  time  series,16  which  are 
merely  phenomenal  since  the  Absolute  is  timeless.  "The  whole  real 
content  of  this  temporal  order,"  says  Royce  to  whom  the  absolute  is 
identical  with  the  divine,  "is  at  once  known,  i.e.,  is  consciously  experi- 
enced as  a  whole,  by  the  Absolute."17  Evolution  there  is,  but  simply 
for  the  finite  view,18  and  we  must  conclude,  if  Royce  is  self-consistent, 
that  there  is  no  evolution  in  the  Absolute  since  all  events  are  at  once 
present  in  him.  A  dream  is  real  at  the  moment  of  its  experience,  but 
unreal  when  related  to  a  larger  context  of  our  total  experience.  The 
same  must  be  true  of  evolution.  It  is  real  with  us  for  our  finite  view 
but  unreal  for  the  Absolute  in  whom  all  events  are  at  once  present.  But 
Royce  is  not  self-consistent.  He  admits  two  different  views  even  in  the 
Absolute  himself,  i.e.,  temporal  and  eternal.  Temporally  viewed, 
says  he,  God  is  in  process  from  instant  to  instant,  from  act  to  act.  Eter- 
nally viewed,  God's  life  is  the  infinite  whole  that  includes  this  endless 
temporal  process.19  Thus  there  is  evolution  in  God  in  his  temporal 
aspect,  but  in  his  eternal  aspect  he  is  infinitely  perfect. 

To  finite  beings,  however,  who  can  have  no  experience  of  the  Absolute 
in  the  totum  simul  the  reality  of  the  perfect  totality  where  all  things  are 
eternally  present  is  hardly  conceivable.  In  criticism  of  the  monistic 
view,  Hoffding  says,  "In  the  absolutist  hypothesis  time  is  regarded  as 
resting  on  an  illusion,  on  an  illusion  which  must  dissolve  into  nothingness 
when  the  true  value — not  arises,  but — discloses  itself.  For  this  reason 
world  and  evolution  in  time,  however  necessary  they  may  be,  can  have 
no  real  significance,  nor  reality,  but  must  be  regarded  as  the  efforts  we 
make  in  dreams.  Even  the  labor  employed  in  destroying  the  illusion, 
in  making  the  dream-picture  sink  into  the  nothing  which  it  is  in  order 
that  we  may  live  in  the  true  reality,  is  itself  an  illusion.  "2°  The  difficulty 

15  Bradley,  op.  tit.,  508. 
18  Ibid.,  216. 

17  J.  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  Vol.  II,  138. 

18  Ibid.,  141. 

19  Ibid.,  418. 

20  H.   Hoffding,   The  Philosophy  of  Religion,   232. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  25 

with  monistic  absolutism  then  is  that,  if  it  admits  evolution  in  the 
Absolute,  all  the  imperfections  coincident  to  evolution  must  be  attributed 
to  the  Absolute,  and  then  God  cannot  be  perfect  in  his  power  since  he 
cannot  eliminate  those  imperfections  at  once.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
monistic  idealism  denies  evolution  as  a  mere  appearance  to  a  finite 
view,  it  can  make  the  Absolute  free  from  imperfection.  But  then  the 
illusion  of  the  temporal  process  with  its  sense  of  imperfections  will  remain 
forever,  haunting  and  tormenting  our  finite  consciousness,  and  God  who 
cannot  do  away  with  such  illusion  for  the  sake  of  his  creatures  cannot 
be  perfect  either  in  his  goodness  or  in  power. 

(2)  Immanent  Transcendentalism.  Leaving  the  difficulty  of  monistic 
absolutism,  let  us  consider  God  in  a  dualistic  immanent  transcendentalism. 
Most  theologians  hold  that  God  is  at  once  immanent  and  transcendent. 
The  fact  of  change,  process,  progress,  and  evolution  does  not  affect  the 
divine  Being  at  all,  as  he  is  transcendent  over  the  course  of  the  universe. 
"God  is  absolutely  immutable,"  says  Hodge,  "in  his  essence  and  attri- 
butes. He  can  neither  increase  nor  decrease."  "We  know  that  God 
is  immutable  in  his  being,  his  perfections,  and  his  purposes,  and  we 
know  that  he  is  perpetually  active.  And  therefore,  activity  and  immuta- 
bility must  be  compatible."21  Sheldon  also  sets  the  conception  of 
immutability  in  a  strong  relief.  "Immutability  implies, "  says  he,  "that 
God  in  all  his  activities  must  remain  the  same,  too  perfect  either  to  in- 
crease or  to  wane,  either  to  transcend  Himself  or  to  fall  below  Himself. 
Ethically  applied  His  immutability  signifies  the  absolute  indefectibility 
of  His  goodness  and  righteousness."22  Thus,  God,  absolutely  im- 
mutable as  he  is,  is  supposed  to  be  the  cause  or  creator  of  the  universe 
which  is  evolving  in  time  and  experiencing  change. 

On  the  other  hand,  such  scholars  as  Mansel,  McTaggart,  and  others 
flatly  deny  God's  immutability  if  he  is  to  be  a  cause.  McTaggart, 
for  instance,  says  that  the  idea  of  divine  causation  is  incompatible 
with  the  idea  of  divine  plenitude.  "An  event  happens,"  says  he, 
"and  makes  the  state  of  the  universe  different  from  what  it  had  been 
before.  The  cause  is  said  to  be  God's  timeless  nature  which  remains 
the  same  before  and  after  the  event.  .  .  .  Then  there  is  nothing  in 
that  nature  which  accounts  for  the  change;  and  it  cannot  be  the  cause. 
If,  while  the  so-called  cause  remains  the  same,  the  effect  varies,  it  is 
clear  that  the  variation  of  the  effect — that  is,  event — is  uncaused." 
Hence  a  competent  cause  cannot  be  changeless.23  God  as  cause  then 

21  C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  391. 

22  H.  C.  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  170. 

M  J.  M.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  194  ff . 


26  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

does  not  prove  to  be  in  so  perfect  a  plenitude  as  to  be  changeless,  and 
if  not  perfect  in  this  respect  he  cannot  be  perfect  also  in  power,  that  is, 
not  omnipotent.24 

Thus  we  see  that  God's  absolute  immutability,  or  changeless  and 
evolutionless  character  is  logically  inconsistent  with  his  being  the  cause 
and  creator  of  an  evolving  universe.  As  soon  as  we  admit  that  God 
is  working  in  the  universe  for  realization  of  certain  ends,  as  the  teleological 
argument  of  theism  states,  God  can  no  longer  be  conceived  as  absolutely 
omnipotent.  Waiving  for  a  moment  God's  transcendental  character, 
let  us  consider  him  as  a  designer,  since  this  thought  is  really  at  the  bottom 
of  causal,  cosmological,  and  teleological  arguments,  no  matter  how  valid 
they  may  be  for  the  existence  of  God.  "  Whatever  worth, "  says  McTag- 
gart,  "  the  argument  from  design  may  have  to  prove  the  existence  of  a 
god  who  is  not  omnipotent,  it  is  quite  useless  as  a  proof  of  the  existence 
of  an  omnipotent  God.  If  it  proved  the  existence  of  a  God  at  all,  it 
would  also  offer  a  positive  disproof  of  his  omnipotence.  .  .  .  Kant  points 
out  that  the  argument  could  not  prove  the  existence  of  a  creative  God. 
As  the  design  has  to  be  contingent  to  the  material  in  which  it  is  carried 
out,  it  gives  us  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  being  who  carried  out  the 
design  created  the  material."25  "The  utmost,"  says  Kant,  "that  could 
be  established  by  such  a  proof  would  be  an  architect  of  the  world,  always 
very  much  hampered  by  the  quality  of  the  material  with  which  he  has 
to  work,  not  a  Creator  to  whose  idea  everything  is  subject.  "26  If  a  wise 
and  good  being  has  used  means  to  an  end,  sa)^s  McTaggart,  this  is  a 
positive  proof  that  he  is  not  omnipotent.  "For  means  are  those  things 
which  have  no  worth  in  themselves,  but  which  it  is  right  to  use  because, 
without  using  them,  some  end  which  has  worth  in  itself  cannot  be  at- 
tained. Now  there  is  nothing  which  an  omnipotent  God  cannot  do — 
otherwise  he  would  not  be  omnipotent.  He  could  get  the  ends  without 
the  means,  if  he  chose  to  do  so.  .  .  We  may  conclude  then,  that, 
whatever  force  the  argument  from  design  may  have  in  proving  the 
existence  of  a  god  of  limited  power,  it  is  worse  than  useless  as  a  proof 
of  the  existence  of  an  omnipotent  God."27 

In  conclusion  we  may  say  that  we  are  to  believe  evolution  as  unreal 
or  merely  phenomenal  from  the  view  point  of  the  Whole  as  in  absolute 
monism.  But  it  is  hard  for  us  to  think  our  experience  of  change  and 

24  McTaggart,  op.  cit.,  254. 

25  Ibid.,    199  ff. 

26  Kant,   Critique  of  Pure  Reason,   I   Ed.,   627. 

27  McTaggart,   op.   cit.,   201  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  27 

progress  as  unreal  while  we  have  no  experience  of  the  reality  of  the 
absolute  totality.  In  immanent  transcendentalism  God  can  be  immu- 
table, but  then  he  cannot  logically  be  the  cause  and  creator  of  the  universe. 
If  he  is  the  creator,  he  must  be  conceived  as  working  in  the  universe 
with  aims  and  ends.  This  teleological  conception  however  makes  it 
difficult  to  believe  that  God  is  absolutely  omnipotent.  If  he  is  to  act 
at  all,  he  must  act  in  limited  ways.  So  we  pass  on  to  the  solution  of 
the  problem  by  affirming  a  modified  omnipotence. 

II.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Modified  Omnipotence. 
(1)  The  Theory  of  the  Fall  of  Man  and  its  Difficulty.  Those  who  hold 
to  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  deny  or  ignore  the  fact  of  evolution  as 
already  intimated,  because,  they  say,  evolution  is  merely  a  scientific 
hypothesis  and  totally  unscriptural. 

"Darwin's  speculation"  was,  thinks  Hodge,  an  attempt  to  trace  the  origin  of 
living  beings  back  to  "one  or  a  few  primordial  germs  from  which  without  any  purpose 
or  design,  by  the  slow  operation  of  natural  causes  and  accidental  variations,  during 
untold  ages,  all  species  of  plant  and  animal  have  been  formed."28  This  conception  is 
diametrically  opposed,  says  Hodge,  to  the  Scriptural  doctrine  which  teaches:  (1) 
"that  the  universe  and  all  it  contains  owe  their  existence  to  the  will  and  power  of  God : 
that  matter  is  not  eternal,  nor  is  life  self-originating:  (2)  that  in  the  beginning  He 
created  every  distinct  kind  of  plant  and  animal"  through  his  fiat  as  in  the  Genesis.29 

Hence  the  theory  of  evolution  must  be  dismissed  as  a  mere  hypothesis 
of  materialistic  science.  According  to  this  theory  of  Hodge  the  phenome- 
na of  struggle  and  conflict,  suffering  and  sacrifice,  destruction  and 
decay  in  things  of  nature  which  the  evolutionary  theory  points  out  are 
not  due  to  the  limitations  of  power  on  the  part  of  the  Creator,  but  they 
are  solely  due  to  the  wickedness  or  corrupt  nature  on  the  part  of  creatures 
consequent  to  the  fall  of  the  first  parents.  The  world  was  created 
perfect,  with  perfect  man  at  its  head;  he  walked  with  God  and  was  loved 
by  Him.  But  alas,  a  great  catastrophe.  Sin  entered  and  all  the  fair 
promise  of  his  incipient  career  was  blighted.  With  his  failure  everything 
else  went  wrong.  The  very  ground  was  cursed  for  his  sake ;  the  harmony 
that  characterized  the  original  scheme  of  things  became  discord.  Evo- 
lutionary phenomena  of  destruction  and  decay,  conflict  and  struggle, 
can  thus  be  explained  away  as  solely  due  as  Milton  says  to  "man's 
first  disobedience."  And  thus,  they  believe,  the  divine  attributes  of 
supreme  gcodness  and  omnipotence  remain  untainted  by  the  changed 
aspect  of  the  universe. 

28  C.  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  II,  23. 

29  Ibid.,  26. 


28  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

We  need  not  here  reproduce  any  further  the  argument  for  this  denial 
of  evolution  and  the  ascription  of  such  phenomena  of  discord  to  the 
human  sin,  because  it  has  been  abondoned  by  most  leading  theologians. 
Suffice  it  to  show  the  difficulty  which  the  older  theologians  feel  themselves. 
Those  who  deny  evolution  usually  concur  in  the  opinion  that  man  must 
be  held  as  a  special  creation  of  God  without  passing  through  a  divergent 
phylogenetic  development  from  lower  stages  of  animal  life.  The  older 
theologians  positively  assert  the  Scriptural  origin  of  man  and  his  original 
state  of  perfection.  Essentials  of  man's  original  state,  says  Strong, 
are  summed  up  in  the  phrase  'the  image  of  God.'  If  this  is  so,  how  can 
we  account  for  the  lapse  or  regress  from  the  original  perfection  to  the 
imperfect,  sinful  state  of  things  today?  Strong,  accounting  for  the 
genesis  of  sin,  says,  "The  Scripture  refers  the  origin  of  man's  corrupt 
nature  to  that  free  act  of  our  first  parents  by  which  they  corrupted 
themselves."30  But  how  could  a  holy  being  fall? 

"Here  we  must  acknowledge,"  says  he,  "that  we  cannot  understand  how  the 
first  unholy  emotion  could  have  found  lodgment  in  a  mind  that  was  set  supremely 
upon  God,  nor  how  temptation  could  have  overcome  a  soul  in  which  there  were  no 
unholy  propensities  to  which  it  could  appeal.  The  mere  power  of  choice  does  not 
explain  the  fact  of  unholy  choice.  The  fact  of  natural  desire  for  sensuous  and  intellec- 
tual gratification  does  not  explain  how  this  desire  came  to  be  inordinate.  Nor  does 
it  throw  light  upon  the  matter,  to  resolve  this  fall  into  a  deception  of  our  first  parents 
by  Satan.  Their  yielding  to  such  deception  presupposes  distrust  of  God  and  alienation 
from  him.  Satan's  fall,  moreover,  since  it  must  have  been  uncaused  by  temptation 
from  without,  is  more  difficult  to  explain  than  Adam's  fall."31 

Strong  feels  the  difficulty  at  once  and  seems  to  suggest  that  it  is  better 
to  conceive  man's  gradual  ascent  than  sudden  descent  as  more  consistent 
with  the  divine  omnipotence,  but  his  conclusion  is  that  man's  fall  from 
the  original  perfection  is  the  fact  of  the  universe  and  would  not  discredit 
the  divine  power. 

(2)  The  Theory  that  Evolution  is  not  Detrimental  to  the  Divine 
Power.  Other  theologians,  e.g.,  Sheldon,  Curtis,  Brown, generally  agree 
in  saying  that  the  facts  of  evolution  are  undeniable,  and  men  are 
gradually  progressing  from  the  lower  to  the  higher  as  a  goal  of  creation. 
The  system  of  nature,  says  Curtis,  is  not  a  deistic  machine,  wound  up  once 
for  all  to  perform  its  own  set  task,  nor  is  it  a  pantheistic  organism,  forever 
self-sufficient  for  its  own  necessary  process.  "It  needs  God,  the  imma- 
nent and  yet  transcendent  God.  In  every  point  and  in  every  movement 
nature  needs  the  Absolute  Will.  Forces,  laws,  processes,  evolutions — 

80  A.  H.  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  582. 
31  Ibid.,  583  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  29 

they  all  but  express  the  personal  power  and  manners  of  the  Lord  God 
Almighty.  .  .  .  Most  tersely  said,  evolution  is  but  a  series  of  individual 
items  planned  for  culmination;  each  item,  after  the  start,  getting  from 
adjacent  items  an  occasion  for  being,  and  also  all  phenomenal  relations; 
and  the  entire  series  making  one  coherent,  ever-moving  scheme  to 
manifest  in  time  the  purpose  of  the  Creator.  "32  Man  is  thus  to  realize 
the  divine  plan  by  summing  up  in  himself  the  best  results  of  past  evolution 
and  growing  gradually  into  a  higher  personality.  The  image  of  God  in 
man  is  not  a  fact  of  the  past  but  the  ideal  for  the  future.  The  working 
out  of  the  divine  plan  in  the  universe  through  the  process  of  evolution 
is  therefore  regarded  by  these  theologians,  not  as  derogatory  to  the 
divine  power,  but  as  a  very  proof  of  his  omnipotence.  Sheldon,  refuting 
Mill's  argument  that  a  being  who  is  in  need  of  means  for  accomplishing 
his  ends  cannot  be  omnipotent,  says  that  this  argument  overlooks  the 
consideration  that  "  speed  or  directness  in  reaching  a  given  end  is  not 
the  only  thing  to  be  regarded  in  a  cosmos.  Respect  must  be  had,  also, 
to  consistency,  or  the  harmonious  relation  of  part  with  part.  The  fact, 
then,  that  means  are  employed  is  no  token  that  the  end  is  difficult 
to  the  Creator.  We  are  free  to  suppose  that  every  means  that  is  chosen 
is  subordinate  to  the  total  end  to  be  realized  so  that  that  end  could  not 
be  realized  in  its  full  extent  without  it,  or  at  least  without  some 
equivalent  "33 

(3)  Incidental  Cost  of  Progress  Justifiable.  The  use  of  means  toward 
ends,  though  said  to  be  unnecessary  by  those  who  assert  quasi  absolute 
omnipotence  (Hodge  &  Strong),  seems  to  be  the  ordinary  method  of 
divine  workmanship  in  the  view  of  those  who  affirm  a  more  modified 
omnipotence,  and  therefore  not  incompatible  with  the  idea  of  God  who 
is  to  act  in  limited  ways  according  to  his  moral  and  rational  nature.  But 
these  theologians  apparently  overlook  many  other  facts  of  evolution 
implicated  in  the  unfolding  of  the  divine  plan.  Brown  seems  to  see  both 
sides  of  evolutionary  implications  more  clearly  than  any  other  theologian. 

"Progress  takes  place,"  says  he,  "through  struggle  against  obstacles,  with  the 
possibility  of  defeat,  or  failure  for  those  who  fail  to  stand  the  test."  "This  too," 
he  continues,  "seems  to  be  a  principle  of  very  wide  range.  It  may  be  observed  in 
all  spheres  of  life — vegetable  and  animal  as  well  as  human,  and  has  its  analogies  even 
in  the  inorganic  world.  Science  tells  us  that  the  types  we  see  are  only  the  survivors 
of  a  much  greater  number  that  have  passed  away.  And  what  is  true  of  the  types 
is  true  also  of  the  individuals  within  each  type.  Of  the  countless  numbers  born  into 
the  world  only  a  small  portion  survives;  and  of  these  only  a  few  reach  maturity.  Where- 
ever  we  look  in  nature,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  we  find  the  same  struggle;  first 

32  O.   A.    Curtis,    The  Christian  Faith,    11-13. 

33  H.  C.  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine.  64. 


30  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

for  existence,  then  for  a  life  which  is  rich  and  full.  What  is  true  of  the  lower  orders  is 
true  also  of  man.  Such  progress  as  he  has  attained  has  been  through  conflict.  The 
races  which  are  weak  have  yielded  to  those  that  are  stronger.  The  prizes  in  every 
profession  go  to  the  few,  and  the  many  lag  behind  or  fall  by  the  way.  From  this  fact 
of  conflict  it  follows  that  some  advance  farther  than  others  in  character  and  attainment, 
while  their  neighbors  fall  behind  or  drop  altogether  out  of  the  race.  In  the  interpreta- 
tion of  these  facts  men  part  company.  Some  find  it  to  be  God's  will  that  few  should 
triumph  and  the  many  go  to  the  wall — the  doctrine  of  election.  Others  see  in  the 
struggle  for  self-development  only  one  side  of  the  divine  government,  whose  obverse 
is  the  principle  of  self-sacrifice,  that  is,  the  voluntary  renunciation  and  surrender  of 
the  more  highly  developed  as  the  means  of  promoting  the  welfare  and  progress  of  those 
who  are  less  advanced.  This  principle  too  is  one  of  wide  spread  application.  In 
animal  life  it  meets  us  in  the  phenomena  of  motherhood;  but  in  man,  with  his  sense  of 
obligation  and  brotherhood,  it  is  transformed  from  an  unconscious  instinct  to  a  moral 
principle.  It  has  its  ground  in  fact  that  men  are  not  isolated  individuals  whose  inter- 
ests can  be  divorced  from  those  of  their  fellows,  but  members  of  a  race  bound  together 
by  manifold  relations,  so  that  the  attainment  of  one  may  be  the  means  of  advancing 
the  many,  and  the  sacrifice  of  one  the  means  of  blessing  all  mankind."34 
Thus  renunciation  and  suffering  cannot  be  escaped  as  the  condition  of 
progress  both  social  and  individual. 

Progress,  as  we  have  seen,  involves  suffering  and  sacrifice,  destruction 
and  waste.  In  order  to  bless  a  part  of  mankind,  God  apparently  has  to 
cause  evil  in  another  part.  His  evolutionary  method  is  not  unmixed 
good.  God  seems  to  be  much  limited  by  his  means,  though  the  means 
themselves  are  but  his  creation.  Creative  activity  is  indeed  God's 
self-limitation,  even  if  God  had  unlimited  power.  But  how  can  God 
be  omnipotent,  being  so  limited  even  by  the  self-limitation  of  using 
the  means  that  involve  much  suffering  and  waste  on  the  part  of  creatures? 
Ward,  answering  this  question,  says,  "An  omnipotent  being  that  could 
not  limit  itself  would  hardly  deserve  the  name  of  God;  would,  in  fact, 
be  only  a  directionless  energy  of  unlimited  amount.  .  .  .  But  God 
according  to  the  theistic  idea  does  not  repudiate,  but  owns  and  respects 
his  world,  a  world  that  is  cosmic,  not  chaotic,  from  the  first,  and  through 
which  we  may  believe  that  one  increasing  purpose  runs.  "35  The  point 
is  that  the  cosmic  order  cannot  be  created  except  through  the  self- 
limitation  of  God  which  involves  incidental  cost  for  the  realization  of 
his  ideal. 

(4)  Growth  of  God  and  Omnipotence  not  Incompatible.  Granting 
that  God's  using  of  means  is  a  sort  of  self-limitation  and  therefore  does 
not  interfere  with  his  omnipotence,  such  theologians  as  Clarke  and 
Brown  seem  to  admit  a  kind  of  change  and  progress  in  God  himself. 

84  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  220-222. 
»J.  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  244-245. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  31 

"The  unchangeable  God, "  says  Clarke,  "holds  an  unchangeable  purpose, 
but  steadiness  of  purpose  requires  variety  of  execution.  Just  for  the 
reason  that  God  is  the  unchangeable  One,  steadily  working  out  the  pur- 
pose that  expresses  his  real  self,  he  must  act  in  a  thousand  ways,  varying 
his  action  with  the  occasion  for  action,  while  he  himself  changes  never.  "36 
This  assertion  of  immutability  is  only  a  verbal  one,  if  God  must  act 
in  a  thousand  ways  varying  his  action  with  the  occasion.  Brown  clearly 
indicates  his  conception  of  the  life  of  God  which  is  a  growth.  There  is  in 
God,  says  he,  the  possibility  of  change,  of  initiative;  he  is  not  bound 
in  his  activity  to  the  result  of  the  past.  It  is  not  the  denial  of  law,  but 
the  affirmation  of  the  highest  law,  namely,  the  law  of  personality,  which 
is  the  sphere  of  freedom  and  therefore  of  progress.  A  recent  writer 
has  well  expressed,  says  he,  the  religious  content  of  the  doctrine  in  the 
phrase  "The  God  of  the  future  is  greater  than  the  God  of  the  past. " 
It  conceives  of  God,  he  continues,  as  having  a  real  experience,  in  some 
true  sense  analogous  to  that  of  man;  as  working  for  ends  which  he  con- 
ceives of  value,  and  finding  his  interest  and  joy  in  their  progressive 
realization  in  history.  It  is  not  the  character  of  God  which  changes 
but  his  activity  and  experience.37  God  experiencing  an  enlargement, 
though  his  character  does  not  change,  is  a  God  of  growth,  of  development, 
of  evolution. 

This  interpretation  suggests  the  inquiry  whether  such  a  God  as  this 
is  not  better  regarded  as  non-omnipotent  rather  than  omnipotent 
even  in  a  modified  sense.  For  a  growing  being  cannot  be  timelessly 
perfect,  and  a  being  who  is  not  absolutely  perfect,  as  McTaggart  insists, 
cannot  be  omnipotent.  We  may  then,  in  the  next  section,  inquire 
whether  there  is  a  better  solution  in  the  denial  of  omnipotence. 

Summary:  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  makes  itself  more  con- 
sistent by  denying  the  fact  of  evolution,  but  its  alternative  of  asserting 
man's  original  state  of  perfection  makes  the  problem  still  more  insoluble 
by  the  difficulty  of  accounting  for  the  cause  of  the  fall  which  is  too 
superhuman  to  leave  the  divine  omnipotence  intact.  A  more  modified 
omnipotence  is  compatible  with  evolution,  since  God  is  here  regarded 
to  be  self-limited  by  the  use  of  means  toward  realizing  his  ends.  But 
this  pursuit  of  ends  is  more  adequate  to  a  finite  being  than  to  a  perfect 
and  immutable  God,  and  if  we  allow  a  growth  to  God  as  Brown  does, 
together  with  the  fact  of  such  defects  in  evolution  as  conflict  and  suffering, 
destruction  and  waste,  it  leads  us  readily  towards  the  affirmation  of 

36  W.  N.  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  89. 

37  W.  A.  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  104. 


32  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

non-omnipotence  instead  of  omnipotence  even  if  we  do  not  deny  God's 
creatorship. 

III.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Denying  Omnipotence.  General 
Remarks:  Evolution  as  Creative  Method.  We  may  suppose  that  God's 
method  of  creation  is  that  of  evolutionary  process.  It  involves  aeons 
and  aeons  to  realize  his  progressive  ends.  Such  may  not  be  conceived 
by  some  as  creation  in  the  old  sense  of  "  creationism, "  but  God  using  a 
method  of  long  temporal  process  can  well  be  called  creative  if  all  the 
materials  that  he  is  using  are  also  of  his  contrivance. 

Now  two  possibilities  are  open  here,  namely,  God  may  be  creative 
but  not  omnipotent;  or  he  may  be  neither  creative  nor  omnipotent. 
McTaggart  has  clearly  analysed  the  problem: 

"If  God  is  not  creative"  says  he,  "he  cannot  be  omnipotent.  If  there  are  beings 
whose  existence  is  as  much  an  ultimate  fact  as  his  own  existence,  then  he  could  not 
have  prevented  their  existence,  and  therefore  his  power  would  be  limited.  But 
even  a  creative  God  need  not  be  omnipotent.  It  is  possible  that  he  should  have  enough 
power  to  create  this  universe,  or  one  of  a  rather  different  nature,  or  perhaps  to  have 
abstained  from  creating  a  universe  at  all,  and  yet  that  in  creating  he  acted  under  limi- 
tations which  would  prevent  him  from  doing  certain  things.  We  have  therefore  three 
possibilities:  a  creative  and  omnipotent  God,  a  God  who  is  creative  but  not  omnipo- 
tent, and  a  God  who  is  neither  creative  nor  omnipotent."38 

Since  the  problem  of  evolution  in  relation  to  the  creative  and  omnipotent 
God  has  already  been  discussed,  we  will  here  present  two  possible  solu- 
tions. The  first  proceeds  on  the  hypothesis  that  God  is  creative  without 
being  omnipotent  because  his  creative  work  is  hampered  by  a  foreign 
power,  though  not  limited  by  his  own  method  and  material;  the  second 
holds  that  God  is  so  limited  by  his  own  mode  of  procedure  that  it  does 
not  allow  us  to  call  him  omnipotent.  The  first  is  represented  by  the 
the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  who  introduces  a  foreign  power  to 
account  for  the  existence  of  all  such  defects  in  evolution  as  conflict  and 
waste,  struggle  and  suffering.  The  second  is  represended  by  F.  H. 
Johnson  who  conceives  of  God  as  creating  the  universe  through  a  long 
process  of  trial  and  error  method. 

1.  Dualistic  Solution.  Now  assuming  that  God  is  back  of  all  that 
is  as  the  creative  agent,  let  us  see  the  solution  of  the  problem  offered 
by  the  anonymous  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  who  considers  that  God 
is  not  omnipotent  because  he  is  hindered  by  the  intrusion  of  a  foreign 
power  into  his  dominion  and  he  is  constantly  struggling  against  this 
diabolical  invader. 

38  J.  M.  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  188  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  33 

Science  teaches,  says  the  author,  first  referring  to  the  fact  of  evolution, 
that  somewhere  within  a  hundred  million  years  of  the  present  time  the 
first  faint  glimmering  of  rudimentary  life  appeared  on  this  planet.  It  was 
the  very  simplest  conceivable  form  of  life — minute  speck  of  a  slimy, 
semi-fluid  substance  which  we  call  'protoplasm.'  From  that  elementary 
material,  the  whole  world  of  animal  and  vegetable  life  has  developed  by 
minute  stages,  through  a  period  of  time  which  must  have  been  incon- 
ceivably vast.  And  through  the  whole  of  that  time  the  upward  progress 
of  life  has  been  promoted  by  a  never-ceasing  struggle  for  existence  and 
by  the  natural  selection  of  the  fittest  for  propagation.  It  is  just  because 
only  the  strongest  and  the  cleverest  of  the  combatants  have  been  able 
to  live — just  because  the  weak  and  the  timid,  the  ailing,  the  poorly  en- 
dowed have  died  out  or  have  been  trampled  out  of  existence  in  the  fight 
— that  all  the  higher  forms  of  life,  including  man  himself,  have  been 
evolved.  But  a  theological  interpretation  of  this  fact  is  that  out  of  all 
this  discord  and  confusion  God  is  slowly  evolving  harmony  and  happi- 
ness; when  the  whole  scheme  has  been  perfected,  and  right  adjustment 
finally  established,  there  will  be  an  end  of  evil. 

Thus  science  and  theology,  observes  the  author,  seem  to  agree  in  a  large  extent, 
but  "the  being  who,  the  preacher  declares,  and  who,  we  would  fain  believe,  is  the  very 
embodiment  of  all  that  is  merciful  and  good,  loving  and  just,  has  yet  for  millions  of 
years,  upon  the  clearest  evidence  of  science,  been  working  by  every  form  of  selfishness, 
cruelty,  and  wrong.  .  .  .  There  is  somewhere  a  fundamental  incongruity  between 
the  God  of  nature  and  the  God  proclaimed  in  the  pulpits,  and  to  many  minds  it  seems 
that  there  is  no  possibility  of  getting  rid  of  that  incongruity."83 
This  fundamental  incongruity  the  author  seeks  to  escape  by  introducing, 
just  at  the  point  where  self-consciousness  arose  in  the  struggle  for  exist- 
ence, a  malignant  Spirit  who  has  caused  maladjustments  in  God's 
creative  process  which  would  otherwise  have  been  perfectly  good  without 
involving  any  sin,  suffering,  selfishness,  cruelty,  and  wrong.  A  detailed 
account  of  the  solution  by  this  dualistic  conception  may  be  omitted 
here  in  order  to  avoid  repetition  since  we  are  going  to  present  it  fully  in 
the  later  chapters  on  evil  and  sin.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  introduction 
of  a  Satanic  power  does  away  with  the  idea  of  divine  omnipotence 
under  whatever  form,  for  it  limits  his  power  from  outside,  and  his  efforts 
to  eliminate  the  malignant  influence  from  outside  seem  almost  futile  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  evil  has  existed  for  aeons  of  ages,  although  God  may 
finally  succeed  in  extirpating  all  the  maladjustment. 

2.  Humanitarian  Solution.  Another  solution  is  offered  by  Johnson 
in  his  book,  God  in  Evolution.  God  here  is  conceived  to  be  a  finite  being 
like  ourselves,  limited  in  many  aspects  in  his  creative  activity. 

39  Evil  and  Evolution,  by  an  anonymous  author,  18-21. 


34  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

"in  the  contemplation  of  organic  life,"  says  Johnson,  "there  passes  before  us  a 
great  pageant  of  creation  extending  through  endless  forms,  from  the  single  protoplasmic 
cell  to  the  greatest  and  wisest  of  human  kind.  It  is  a  sublime  continuity  of  becoming, 
of  training,  of  revelation,  of  creation,  of  salvation,  of  the  highest  inherent  possibilities 
of  the  process.  ...  But  there  is  another  side  to  it.  The  moment  we  descend  from 
the  survey  of  the  great  features  of  the  process  to  the  study  of  detail  we  are  confronted 
by  aspects  of  deity  that  are  altogether  foreign  to  our  traditional  conceptions  of  God. 
Here  He  discloses  Himself  as  one  who  has  employed,  for  the  accomplishment  of  his 
ends,  a  long  and  elaborate  process.  His  work  gives  the  impression  of  one  who  moves 
slowly,  tentatively,  as  it  were  feeling  His  way,  to  some  dimly  foreseen  end  by  the 
use  of  instrumentalities  not  thoroughly  mastered;  the  process  is  apparently  character- 
ized by  many  setbacks,  by  unfulfilled  promises,  roads  that  seem  to  have  been  built 
a  certain  way  and  abandoned.  Although,  viewed  as  a  whole,  the  process  is  seen  to 
be  a  grand  and  ever-expanding  movement  upward  on  the  scale  of  being,  there  is  also 
an  immense  amount  of  destruction  and  incidental  waste;  there  is  much  conflict  and 
much  suffering  on  the  part  of  creatures  so  constituted  as  to  be  capable  of  great  happi- 
ness. In  short,  the  God  of  evolution  appears  to  be  one  who,  like  ourselves,  is  beset 
with  limitations  over  which  He  triumphs  by  the  use  of  infinitely  varied  appliances  and 
adjustments.  "40 

To  defend  this  position  Johnson  simply  uses  human  analogy  over 
against  the  old  way  of  conceiving  God  as  transcending  all  human  quali- 
ties and  limitations.  Criticising  the  traditional  conception  of  God,  he 
says  that  it  has  told  nothing  whatever  about  Him,  but  only  what  He  is 
not.  It  has  been  a  great  and  all  comprehensive  denial  of  the  community 
of  our  nature  and  His,  a  destructive  blight  upon  the  natural  growth 
of  our  minds  toward  Him.  We  are  finite,  He  is  ^finite.  While,  however, 
declaring  Him  unlimited  we  have,  from  the  standpoint  of  our  knowledge, 
made  Him  the  absolutely  limited  one,  for,  so  far  as  his  infinity  is  concerned, 
He  is  to  us  a  meaningless  blank.41  Again,  the  author  points  out  an 
inconsistency  of  traditional  theology  in  attributing  personality  to  the 
infinite,  for  it  is  impossible  to  eliminate  the  idea  of  a  conditioned  being 
without  at  the  same  time  eliminating  the  idea  of  personality.42  But  the 
idea  of  God  as  limited  is  implicit  in  the  idea  of  God  as  benevolent,  as 
well  as  in  the  idea  of  God  as  a  person.  And  practically  we  have  always 
thought  of  the  divine  agency  as  characterized  by  an  associated  freedom 
and  determinism  similar  to  that  which  we  find  in  human  agency.43 

So  let  us  conceive  of  God,  says  Johnson,  in  human  analogy  as  we  understand  man 
in  our  experience.  "We  are  intimately  acquainted  with  ourselves  as  creators,  as 
bringing  into  existence  a  little  world  by  the  use  of  instrumentalities.  By  these  instru- 
mentalities we  are,  at  the  same  time,  aided  and  limited.  We  are  absolutely  dependent 

40  F.  H.  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  86-87. 

41  Ibid.,  88  ff. 

42  Ibid.,  93. 

43  Ibid.,  96. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  35 

upon  them  but  at  the  same  time  we  bend  them  to  our  purposes,  and  overrule  them 
in  our  interests.  So  doing,  we  accomplish  great  things,  but  these  great  things  are 
characterized  by  great  imperfections.  The  responsibility  for  some  of  these  imper- 
fections rest  upon  us,  but  for  a  very  much  larger  class  it  is  justly  laid  upon  the  nature 
of  things.  Just  so,  from  the  standpoint  of  this  analogy,  if  we  once  admit  the  thought 
that  He  who  created  the  world,  as  we  know  it,  labored  under  limitations  of  some  kind 
analogous  to  those  which  we  have  to  meet  and  triumph  over,  we  are  ready  to  worship 
rather  than  to  find  fault.  Remembering  our  own  tribulations  and  triumphs,  our 
hearts  go  out  in  sympathy  and  thankfulness  for  what  has  been  hitherto  and  for  that 
which  shall  be.  Shorn  of  the  word  omnipotence,  the  idea  of  God  becomes  something 
less  awe-inspiring,  perhaps,  less  mysterious,  less  removed  from  us  and  all  our  possibili- 
ties, but  on  the  other  hand,  it  becomes  something  more  real,  more  intelligibly  worship- 
ful, infinitely  more  moral  and  love-inspiring.  He  appears  as  one  who  shares  the 
battle  with  us,  who  counts  on  us  as  supporters  in  the  world  process.  Omnipotence 
divided  Him,  as  by  an  unfathomable  gulf,  from  us.  We  worshipped  we  knew  not 
what,  a  being  of  inconceivable  attributes.  The  God  of  evolution  is,  on  the  contrary, 
one  with  whom  we  can  live  in  sympathy.  Our  devotion  to  Him  is  not  mere  fleeting 
incense,  it  is  a  positive  factor  in  a  world-not-yet-finished,  in  a  process  which  may  be 
advanced,  or  hindered,  by  the  way  in  which  we  lead  our  lives."44 

Since  God  is  known  to  be  one  who  works  by  methods  that  may  be 
likened  to  ours,  every  experience  of  ours,  every  problem  solved,  every 
difficulty  against  which  we  contend  throws  some  light  upon  the  meaning 
of  the  way  which  He  takes.  His  problems  are  our  problems.  His  good 
is  our  good.  His  evil  is  our  evil.  He  is  engaged  in  overcoming  as  we  are 
engaged  in  overcoming.  We  are  one  with  Him,  not  simply  in  a  mystical 
or  metaphysical  sense,  but  really  and  practically,  in  that  His  interests 
are  our  interests.45  Johnson's  contention  is  clear  that  it  is  better  not 
to  apply  such  a  mysterious  term  as  omnipotence  to  the  divine  Being  who, 
like  ourselves,  is  working  under  limitations  and  cannot  attain  His  ideals 
without  using  instrumentalities  which  do  not  easily  bend  to  His  will. 

As  to  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  evolution  on  the  hypothesis  that 
God  is  neither  creative  nor  omnipotent,  it  is  better  to  take  it  up  later 
when  we  gather  up  in  a  concluding  chapter  the  solutions  of  other  problems 
on  this  hypothesis,  for  this  will  give  a  better  perspective  of  the  whole 
survey. 

44  Johnson,  op.  cit.,  90-92. 
100. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  IMPERFECTION  IN  RELATION  TO  OMNIPOTENCE 

The  problem  involved  in  the  fact  of  imperfection  is  bound  up  with 
the  problem  of  evolution  on  the  one  hand,  and  with  that  of  evil  and  sin 
on  the  other,  because  these  also  come  under  the  general  conception  of 
physical  and  moral  imperfections.  There  is  scarcely  any  imperfection 
which  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  in  some  sense  evil.  Thus  theologians  do 
not  generally  discuss  the  problem  of  imperfection  by  itself,  still  less 
do  they  consider  it  in  its  relation  to  the  problem  of  divine  omnipotence. 
Most  of  them  take  it  for  granted  that  this  world  of  ours  is  full  of  imper- 
fections and  incompletenesses,  but  these  are  usually  regarded  as  due  to 
sin  and  evil.  The  problem  of  imperfection  and  its  solution  therefore  can 
not  be  adequately  treated  until  we  discuss  the  problems  of  evil  and  sin. 
Here  we  simply  present  some  aspects  of  the  problem  of  imperfection 
in  so  far  as  it  is  separable  from  other  problems. 

Problem 

We  find  a  great  many  imperfections  such  as  death,  disease,  discord, 
failure,  error,  ignorance,  immaturity,  etc.,  in  our  life  in  this  world. 
We  know  that  even  we  ourselves  can  conceive  improvements  and  indeed 
are  making  improvements  so  far  as  we  can.  By  doing  so,  are  we  daring 
to  improve  the  work  of  a  supposedly  perfect  creator?  Why  then,  we  ask, 
does  not  God  himself  improve  our  imperfect  conditions  of  life  at  once, 
if  he  be  the  omnipotent  author  of  all  things?  Or  shall  we  say  that  our 
sense  of  imperfection  is  illusory — only  real  as  phenomenal  in  our  finite 
view?  But  if  God  is  omnipotent,  can  he  not  do  away  even  with  such 
illusion  at  once  and  make  our  universe  more  hospitable  to  us,  without 
such  a  nightmare?  The  fact  of  death,  at  least,  seems  to  be  an  outstanding 
imperfection.  Why,  we  may  ask,  does  death  exist  which  seems  to  be 
an  undoing  of  what  has  once  been  constructed  and  seems  to  be  a  failure 
of  creation  on  the  part  of  the  Creator,  if  he  is  almighty?  Does  our  hope 
for  immortality  justify  God?  Does  the  ideal  future  vindicate  the 
present  imperfection?  In  short,  if  God's  universe  contains  anything 
imperfect  that  can  be  improved,  can  we  call  its  author  perfect  and  omni- 
potent? 

Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem 

I.  Solution  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Absolute  Omnipotence. 
(1)  Imperfection  Due  to  a  Finite  View  of  Reality.  There  is  nothing 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  37 

individual  and  perfect,  says  Bradley,  except  only  the  Absolute.1  Now 
the  Absolute,  he  holds,  manifests  itself  in  the  world  of  phenomena  or 
appearances.  Indeed  "the  Absolute  is  its  appearances,  it  really  is  all 
and  every  one  of  them.  "2  Why  then,  if  the  Absolute  is  perfect,  are  its 
appearances  imperfect?  Bradley  holds  that  all  imperfections  are  mere 
onesided  views  of  the  Reality.  "Error,"  for  instance  says  he,  "is  truth, 
it  is  partial  truth,  that  is  false  only  because  partial  and  left  incomplete.  "3 
The  same  is  true  of  the  evil  and  ugly.  "The  predicates,  evil,  ugly,  and 
false  must  stamp  whatever  they  qualify,  as  a  mere  subordinate  aspect, 
an  aspect  belonging  to  the  provinces  of  beauty  or  goodness  or  truth. 
And  to  assign  such  a  position  to  the  Absolute  would  be  plainly  absurd.  "4 
Yet  he  says  that  ugliness,  error,  and  evil,  all  are  owned  by,  and  all 
essentially  contribute  to  the  wealth  of  the  Absolute.5  This  is  to  say 
the  incomplete  and  imperfect  are  necessary  to  the  complete  and  perfect. 
Then  what  is  the  true  nature  of  reality?  Is  it  perfect  or  imperfect? 
Good,  truth,  and  beauty  are  for  Bradley  not  the  ultimate  reality.  "  Good" 
says  he,  "is  not  the  perfect  but  is  merely  a  one-sided  aspect  of  perfection. 
It  tends  to  pass  beyond  itself,  and,  if  it  were  completed,  it  would  forth- 
with cease  properly  to  be  good."6  So  with  truth  and  beauty.  His 
position  is  that  the  universe  as  a  whole  is  perfect,  and  imperfections  are 
but  a  finite  view  of  things.  Imperfections  and  defects  are  not  mere 
negations  as  nothing  is  non-existent.  But  they  are  existent,  and  it  is 
due  to  our  finiteness,  a  sort  of  illusion  when  looked  at  from  the  absolute 
view  point,  yet  real  in  our  practical  life.7  This  conception,  if  tenable, 
may  help  to  solve  the  problem  of  imperfection  by  affirming  the  absolute 
omnipotence  of  God,  since  the  universe  as  a  whole  is  conceived  as  perfect, 
and  nothing  hinders  the  divine  omnipotence.  But  why,  it  may  be 
questioned,  does  the  perfect  Absolute  allow  the  finite  view  of  imperfec- 
tions which  are  so  real  in  our  practical  world? 

(2)  Criticism  of  This  View.  Contrasted  with  the  above  is  William 
James's  position,  which  holds  that  if  imperfections  are  real,  no  absolute 
omnipotence  is  possible. 

"  Grant  that, "  says  he,  "  the  spectacle  or  world  romance  offered  to  itself  by  the  Ab- 
solute is  in  the  Absolute's  eyes  perfect.  Why  would  not  the  world  be  more  perfect 

1  F.  H.  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  246. 

2  Ibid.,  486. 
9  Ibid.,  192. 
4  Ibid.,  488. 
8  Ibid.,  489. 
6  Ibid.,  409. 
•'Ibid.,  485  ff. 


38  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

by  having  the  affair  remain  in  just  those  terms,  and  by  not  having  any  finite  spectators 
to  come  in  and  add  to  what  was  perfect  already  their  innumerable  imperfect  manners 
of  seeing  the  same  spectacle?  Suppose  the  entire  universe  to  consist  of  one  superb 
copy  of  a  book,  fit  for  the  ideal  reader.  Is  that  universe  improved  or  deteriorated 
by  having  myriads  of  garbled  and  misprinted  separate  leaves  and  chapters  also  created, 
giving  false  impressions  of  the  book  to  whoever  looks  at  them?  To  say  the  least, 
the  balance  of  rationality  is  not  obviously  in  favor  of  such  added  mutilations.  So 
this  question  becomes  urgent:  why,  the  Absolute's  own  total  vision  of  things  being 
so  rational,  was  it  necessary  to  communicate  it  into  all  these  co-existing  inferior  frag- 
mentary visions?  Leibniz  in  his  theodicy  represents  God  as  limited  by  an  antecedent 
reason  in  things.  By  an  act  of  what  Leibniz  calls  his  antecedent  will  God  chooses 
our  actual  world  as  the  one  in  which  the  evil,  unhappily  necessary  anyhow,  is  at  its 
minimum.  Having  made  this  mental  choice,  God  next  proceeds  to  what  Leibniz 
calls  his  act  of  consequent  or  decratory  will;  he  says,  'Fiat'  and  the  world  selected 
springs  into  objective  being,  with  all  the  finite  creatures  in  it  to  suffer  from  its  imper- 
fections without  sharing  in  its  creator's  atoning  vision.  The  world  projected  out  of 
the  creative  mind  by  the  fiat,  and  existing  in  detachment  from  its  author  is  a  sphere 
of  being  where  the  parts  realize  themselves  only  singly.  If  the  divine  value  of  them 
is  evident  only  when  they  are  collectively  looked  at,  then,  Lotze  rightly  says,  the  world 
surely  becomes  poorer  and  not  richer  for  God's  utterance  of  the  fiat.  He  might  much 
better  have  remained  contented  with  his  merely  antecedent  choice  of  the  scheme, 
without  following  it  up  by  a  creative  decree.  The  scheme  as  such  was  admirable;  it  could 
only  lose  by  being  translated  into  reality.  Why,  I  similarly  ask,  should  the  Absolute 
ever  have  lapsed  from  the  perfection  of  its  own  integral  experience  of  things,  and 
refracted  itself  into  all  our  finite  experiences?"8 

Many  of  recent  English  absolutists,  he  concludes,  have  confessed  the 
imperfect  rationality  of  the  absolute  from  this  point  of  view.  McTaggart, 
for  example,  writes:  "Does  not  our  very  failure  to  perceive  the  perfection 
of  the  universe  destroy  it?.  ...  In  so  far  as  we  do  not  see  the  perfection 
of  the  universe,  we  are  not  perfect  ourselves.  And  as  we  are  parts  of 
the  universe,  that  cannot  be  perfect.  "9  The  conclusion  of  James  is  that 
absolute  idealism  is  decidedly  irrational:  "the  ideally  perfect  whole  is 
certainly  that  whole  of  which  the  parts  also  are  perfect"  but  this  is  denied. 
It  creates  a  speculative  puzzle,  says  he,  the  so-called  mystery  of  evil 
and  error,  from  which  a  pluralistic  metaphysic  is  entirely  free.  Thus 
if  we  assume  the  perfection  of  the  absolute,  the  imperfections  of  the 
finites  which  are  but  his  creation  become  an  unsoluble  puzzle.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  admit  the  reality  of  our  imperfections,  a  perfect 
Absolute  should  remove  them  all  at  once,  otherwise  he  cannot  be  abso- 
lutely omnipotent. 

II.  Solution  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Modified  Omnipotence. 
(1)  The  Perfect  Ideal  Justifies  the  Imperfect  Real.  There  is  no  other 
possibility  than  to  explain  away  the  fact  of  imperfections  in  some  meta- 

8W.  James,  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  118-121. 

9  McTaggart,  Studies  in  Hegelian  Dialectics,   Sec.    150,   153. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  39 

physical  way,  if  we  are  to  affirm  the  absolute  omnipotence  of  a  perfectly 
good  God.  But  such  explanations  meet  the  hard  fact  that  defects  and 
imperfections  in  this  world  are  as  real  as  our  life  itself.  The  solution, 
therefore,  of  the  problem  of  imperfection  attempted  by  recent  theologians 
consists  in  a  keener  appreciation  of  the  ideals  toward  which  divine 
Providence  is  incessantly  working.  An  omnipotent  God  acts  in  limited 
ways,  using  means  to  ends,  because  he  is  thus  working  out  a  perfect 
consummation  which  will  completely  explain  and  justify  present  imper- 
fections. 

"Man's  dissatisfaction  with  his  present  condition,"  says  Harris,  "is  incidental 
to  his  being  constituted  for  the  progressive  realization  of  a  higher  ideal.  Hence  any 
objection  to  God's  goodness  founded  on  this  incompleteness  is  futile. "  It  is  as  futile 
a  question,  says  Harris,  as  asking  why  Christ  did  not  come  to  redeem  men  immediately 
on  the  appearance  of  the  first  man.  "God  has  been  realizing  his  archetypal  ideal 
through  countless  aeons  in  countless  worlds,  and  doubtless  in  the  evolution  of  innumer- 
able systems  in  space  and  time.  At  any  point  of  time  or  space  it  is  idle  to  object  that 
God  cannot  be  all  wise,  almighty  and  all  good,  because  the  universe  is  not  finished  to 
perfection,  and  we  can  conceive  of  something  higher  still  to  be  attained.  .  .  .  The 
same  principle  applies  to  the  rational  individual.  God  has  constituted  every  rational 
person  immortal.  God  is  seeking  to  realize  in  every  such  person  the  ideal  of  perfection 
in  endless  development  in  knowledge,  power,  and  blessedness.  Therefore  man's  every 
dissatisfaction  with  his  present  condition,  his  longing  for  what  is  higher  and  better, 
is  incidental  to  his  being  constituted  for  the  realization  of  a  higher  ideal."10 

(2)  Immortality  to  Remedy  Existing  Imperfections  Incidental  to 
Developing  Life.  To  the  vindication  of  God  by  the  conception  that 
the  perfect  future  justifies  the  imperfect  present,  must  be  added  the 
hope  for  immortality,  since  man,  as  Brown  says,  is  conscious  of  capaci- 
ties and  ideals  for  which  the  brief  span  of  the  present  life  admits  no 
satisfaction.  "Still  the  sense  of  justice  cries  out  for  some  adjustment 
of  the  inequalities  which  are  so  painfully  manifest  in  the  lot  of  man. 
Still  the  religious  experience  warrants  hope  that  the  communion  which 
now  exists  between  the  soul  and  God  is  prophetic  of  larger  fellowship 
to  come.  The  enlarged  view  of  the  universe  may  serve  to  exalt,  as 
well  as  to  belittle,  the  significance  of  the  being  who  is  apparently  its 
highest  product.  The  self-forgetfulness  and  devotion  engendered  by 
modern  social  service  render  the  lives  of  those  who  exemplify  them  not  less 
but  more  worthy  of  continuance.  "u  The  goal  of  life  then  is  not  to  be 
attained  in  this  world  if  we  can  rightly  hope  for  the  continuance  of  our 
life  into  the  next.  Brown  seems  to  do  away  with  the  difficulty  of  defects 
and  failures  in  this  world  by  his  firm  belief  in  the  other-worldly  goal  of 
human  life. 

10  Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  pp.  229  ff. 
"Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  p.  257. 


40  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

"The  theoretical  argument,"  says  he,  "against  the  possibility  of  individual 
perfection  has  its  psychological  ground  in  the  experience  of  incompleteness  and  limita- 
tion which  is  natural  characteristic  of  a  developing  life.  Experience  shows  that  we 
gain  one  height  only  to  find  another  still  unsealed;  and  the  best  of  men  describe  their 
life  in  terms  of  aspiration  rather  than  of  attainment.  This  sense  of  incompleteness 
is  reenforced  by  a  study  of  man's  social  nature.  If  it  be  true  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  isolated  personality,  but  that  man  realizes  his  true  self  through  his  relations 
to  his  fellows,  then  the  necessary  condition  for  the  production  of  the  perfect  individual 
would  seem  to  be  a  perfect  society,  and  to  hope  to  see  this  within  the  limits  of  time 
compassed  by  a  single  life  is  manifestly  out  of  question.  .  .  .  Those  who  seem  to  us 
most  advanced  in  the  Christian  life  are  most  conscious  of  their  own  unworthiness  and 
imperfection.  Not  here,  they  tell  us,  but  in  the  better  life  which  lies  beyond,  is  the 
ideal  to  be  realized.  So  the  hope  of  individual  perfection  requires  as  its  complement 
faith  in  immortality."12 

It  is  not  here  then  but  in  the  unseen  world  for  which  this  life  is  a  training 
school,  that  we  must  look  for  the  final  realization  of  the  Christian  ideal. 

The  final  realization  of  the  ideal  as  justification  of  the  divine  wisdom 
as  well  as  power  must  be  looked  at  from  the  evolutionary  point  of  view, 
as  creation  is  not  supposed  to  be  a  finished  fact.  Gradual  growth  of 
human  personality  extended  over  into  the  future  life  with  progressive 
elimination  of  defects  and  imperfections  is  said  to  be  the  ordinary  method 
of  divine  procedure.  Since  the  almighty  God,  if  he  is  to  act  at  all,  has 
to  act  in  limited  ways  according  to  his  moral  and  rational  character, 
no  calumny  seems  justified  against  his  slow  process.  When  the  final 
consummation  of  the  grand  progressive  movement  comes  about,  defects 
and  imperfections  of  the  past  will  completely  be  swallowed  up  in  the 
glory  of  triumph. 

III.  Solution  of  the  Problem  by  Denying  Omnipotence.  (1)  Immor- 
tality Uncertain.  The  argument  for  theodicy  in  relation  to  the  problem 
of  imperfection,  as  shown  above,  depends  largely  upon  the  hope  of 
immortality.  If,  however,  we  insist  on  conclusions  drawn  from  our 
actual  life  in  this  world  rather  than  unprovable  conditions  in  an  assumed 
future  life,  the  argument  would  present  a  different  aspect.  "The  com- 
mon argument  for  immortality,"  says  John  S.  Mill,  "rests  upon  the 
supposition  that  it  is  improbable  that  the  goodness  of  God  would  ordain 
the  annihilation  of  his  noblest  and  richest  work,  after  the  greater  part  of 
its  few  years'  life  had  been  spent  in  the  acquisition  of  faculties  which 
time  has  not  allowed  him  to  turn  to  fruit.  "l3  But  this  supposition,  he 
contends,  has  no  positive  guarantee  from  the  facts  of  our  empirical 
world.  There  is  therefore  no  assurance  whatever  of  a  life  after  death.14 

12  Brown,  op.  cit.,  pp.  414  ff. 

13  Mill,  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  208. 

14  Ibid.,  209. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  41 

Modern  psychology  has  made  it  clear  that  the  physical  and  the  psychical 
are  but  functional  aspects  of  life  and  that  they  are  mutually  dependent. 
If  this  is  so,  death  that  destroys  our  physical  basis  of  life  would  naturally 
involve  the  cessation  of  the  psychical  function. 

If  there  is  thus  no  assurance  of  personal  immortality,  as  Mill  insists, 
the  realization  of  the  ideal  world  may  belong  to  later  generations  of  the 
human  race  in  its  historic  development,  but  certainly  not  to  ourselves 
who  are  to  die  before  the  consummation  is  brought  about.  If  we  can- 
not perfect  ourselves  in  our  life  time,  our  dissatisfaction  cannot  be  cured 
by  a  simple  optimistic  outlook  for  our  posterity,  since  our  defects  and 
imperfections  would  be  inevitably  ours.  Supposing  God  to  be  our  crea- 
tor, perfect  and  omnipotent,  how  can  we  expect  him  to  be  tolerant  of  our 
imperfections  that  cannot  be  improved  in  our  life  time?  If  God  cannot 
remove  imperfections  except  through  the  race  history  of  future,  the 
imperfections  of  individuals  in  the  past  rightly  constitute  an  indictment 
against  his  omnipotence.  We  must  conclude,  with  McTaggart,  that 
a  perfectly  good  God  would  not  have  created  the  universe,  if  imperfec- 
tions were  thus  unavoidable  in  his  process  of  creation.  If,  then,  he 
created  an  imperfect  world  in  spite  of  its  repugnance  to  his  good  will, 
he  cannot  be  omnipotent. 

(2)  Miracles  as  Proof  of  Non-omnipotence.  The  older  theologians 
such  as  Hodge,  Shedd,  and  Smith,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  Chapter  II, 
assert  miracles  as  a  proof  of  the  divine  omnipotence  in  his  providential 
government.  God  is  said  to  have  such  a  power  of  free  action  as  to 
deviate  from  the  ordinary  course  of  natural  laws  and  work  wonders 
at  his  will.  But  on  the  other  hand,  the  existence  of  miracles,  if  proven, 
is  looked  upon  by  some  scholars  as  a  very  disproof  of  omnipotence.  Mill 
finds  miracles  to  be  an  obstacle  to  belief  in  the  goodness  of  God,  although 
they  are  usually  supposed  to  prove  the  special  benevolence  as  well  as 
omnipotence  of  God.  So  he,  discussing  the  significance  of  miracles 
in  the  ordinary  theological  sense,  forcibly  asserts  that  the  very  existence 
of  miracle,  if  it  does  occur  in  God's  providential  government  frustrates 
the  idea  of  a  perfect  world  and  its  omnipotent  creator,15  because  there 
would  be  no  need  of  miraculous  intervention,  if  the  world  were  created 
perfect  by  a  perfect  creator.  Mill's  contention  is  that  the  notion  of 
providential  government  by  an  omnipotent  Being  for  the  good  of  his 
creatures  must  be  entirely  dismissed,  since  a  Being  who  has  produced  a 
world  machinery  falling  short  of  his  intentions  and  requiring  the  occasion- 
al interposition  of  his  hand,  cannot  himself  be  a  perfect  creator.16 

15  Mill,  op.  cit.,  pp.  235-240. 
18  Ibid.,  243. 


42  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

(3)  The  Perfect  cannot  Produce  the  Imperfect.     A  creation  less 
perfect  than  the  creator,  Hoffding  considers,  is  a  discredit  to  the  perfec- 
tion of  the  creator  himself.     Christian  theology,   says  he,   offers  an 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  the  world,  "  which  seems  as  if  it  might  involve 
the  assumption  of  a  shrinkage  of  value.     For  Creation  is  less  than  the 
Creator:    it  is  finite  and  limited,  and  there  is  always  the  possibility 
of  the  fall  which  does  not  exist  for  the  Creator  in  his  eternal  and  ideal 
reality."17     It  is  far  easier  to  understand,  as  Hoffding  says,  that  the 
more  perfect  may  have  developed  out  of  the  less  than  that  the  imperfect 
should  have  had  its  origin  in  the  perfect.     If  the  perfect  contain  within 
itself  the  possibility  or  the  seed  of  the  imperfect,  it  is  not  perfect;  while 
the  imperfect  may  by  completion  or  transformation  develop  in  the 
direction  of  perfection.18    James  also  contends  that  creatures  cannot 
differ  in  quality  from  their  creator,  for  the  creation  reflects  the  character 
of  the  creator.19    Thus  the  imperfection  of  the  universe  must  be  attributed 
to  the  imperfection  of  its  sole  author. 

(4)  Imperfection  as  an  Educative  Device  Disproves  Omnipotence. 
Mill,  furthermore,  refutes  the  theory  that  God  simply  uses  contrivance 
or  means  for  educative  purposes  that  men  might  learn  God's  perfect 
work  through  the  traces  of  his  creative  process  that  are  imperfect.     "If 
it  be  said,"  Mill  contends,  "that  an  omnipotent  Creator,  though  under 
no  necessity  of  employing  contrivances  such  as  man  must  use,  thought 
fit  to  do  so  in  order  to  leave  traces  by  which  man  might  recognize  his 
creative  hand,  the  answer  is  that  this  equally  supposes  a  limit  to  his 
omnipotence.     For  if  it  was  his  will  that  men  should  know  that  they 
themselves  and   the  world  are  his  work,  he,  being  omnipotent,  had  only 
to  will  that  they  should  be  aware  of  it."20    But  if  we  say  that  God  had 
to  defer  for  educational  purposes  the  doing  of  what  is  obviously  good, 
the  necessity  of  postponing  one  thing  to  another,  Mill  contends,  belongs 
only  to  limited  power. 

"If  the  creator,"  he  adds,  "like  a  human  ruler,  had  to  adapt  himself 
to  a  set  of  conditions  which  he  did  not  make,  it  is  as  unphilosophical 
as  presumptuous  in  us  to  call  him  to  account  for  any  imperfections  in 
his  work.  We  cannot  judge  what  greater  good  would  have  had  to  be 
sacrificed,  or  what  greater  evil  incurred,  if  he  had  decided  to  remove 
this  particular  blot.  Not  so  if  he  be  omnipotent.  If  he  be  that,  he 

17  Hoffding,   The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  pp.   240. 

18  Ibid.,  p.   136  ff. 

19  James,  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  193-194. 

20  MiU,  Op.  «/.,  178. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  43 

must  himself  have  willed  that  the  two  desirable  objects  should  be 
incompatible;  he  must  himself  have  willed  that  the  obstacle  to  his  sup- 
posed design  should  be  insuperable.  It  cannot  therefore  be  his  design. 
It  will  not  do  to  say  that  it  was,  but  that  he  had  other  designs  which 
interfered  with  it;  for  no  one  purpose  imposes  necessary  limitations  on 
another  in  the  case  of  a  Being  not  restricted  by  conditions  of  possi- 
bility."21 

The  existence  of  imperfections  then  is  not  a  purposive  contrivance 
of  the  good  God  but  they  exist  in  spite  of  his  will,  for  if  he  could,  he 
would  long  since  have  eliminated  them  altogether.  "The  only  admis- 
sible moral  theory  of  creation,"  says  Mill,  "is  that  the  principle  of 
Good  cannot  at  once  and  altogether  subdue  the  powers  of  evil,  either 
physical  or  moral;  could  not  place  mankind  in  a  world  free  from  the 
necessity  of  an  incessant  struggle  with  the  maleficent  powers,  or  make 
them  always  victorious  in  that  struggle,  but  could  and  did  make  them 
capable  of  carrying  on  the  fight  with  vigor  and  with  progressively  increas- 
ing success.  "22  Such  would  be,  says  Mill,  a  faith  which  seems  much  better 
adapted  for  nerving  man  to  exertion  than  a  vague  and  inconsistent  re- 
liance on  an  Author  of  good  who  is  supposed  to  be  also  the  author  of 
evil.  "Many  have  derived,"  he  continues,  "a  base  confidence  from 
imagining  themselves  to  be  favorites  of  an  omnipotent  but  capricious 
and  despotic  Deity,  but  those  who  have  been  strengthened  in  goodness 
by  replying  on  the  sympathizing  support  of  a  powerful  and  good  governor 
of  the  world,  have,  I  am  satisfied,  never  really  believed  that  Governor  to 
be,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  term,  omnipotent.  They  have  always  saved 
his  goodness  at  the  expense  of  his  power.  They  have  believed  that 
God's  government  was  a  system  of  adjustments  and  compromises;  that 
the  world  is  inevitably  imperfect,  contrary  to  his  intention."23  Mill's 
conclusion  is  that  we  must,  in  order  to  keep  the  divine  benevolence 
intact,  give  up  the  idea  of  his  omnipotence. 

The  problem  of  imperfection,  however,  involves  the  problem  of 
physical  and  moral  evils,  as  has  been  intimated,  and  so  it  will  find  its 
fuller  explanation  as  we  discuss  the  problem  of  evil  and  sin  in  the  sub- 
sequent chapters. 

21  Mill,  op.  cit.,  p.  179. 

22  Ibid.,  p.  38. 
**Ibid.,  p.  40. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  PROBLEM  or  PHYSICAL  EVIL  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 
Problem 

The  problem  of  evil  involves  as  we  have  seen  the  problem  of  imper- 
fection and  that  of  sin.  But  sin  or  moral  evil,  being  the  most  serious 
problem  in  the  affirmation  of  divine  omnipotence,  will  receive  treatment 
in  the  next  chapter;  here  we  confine  ourselves  to  the  question  of  physical 
evil  as  far  as  it  is  separable  from  the  subsequent  problem  of  moral  evil. 
While  the  problem  of  evolution  or  imperfection  is  not  considered  so 
serious,  almost  every  recent  theologian  clearly  sees  the  difficulty  of 
reconciling  the  existence  of  evil  with  the  faith  in  the  good  almighty  God. 
We  can  cite  at  random  from  any  theological  books,  but  here  we  give 
only  a  few  typical  presentations. 

"How  can  the  existence,"  asks  Hodge,  "of  evil,  physical  and  moral,  be  reconciled 
with  the  benevolence  and  holiness  of  a  God  infinite  in  his  wisdom  and  power?"1 

"The  world  is  full  of  suffering, "  says  Clarke,  "and  the  amount  of  it  is  inconceivable. 
No  one  escapes  it,  can  escape.  Trouble  is  everywhere.  There  is  physical  pain,  and 
there  mental  anguish,  both  in  endless  variety.  The  suffering  is  not  distributed  accord- 
ing to  desert,  for  no  attention  appears  to  be  paid  to  merit  or  demerit  when  it  comes. " 

Clarke  points  out  the  fact  that  modern  knowledge  is  extending  far 
the  scope  of  the  problem. 

"The  race  is  far  older,"  says  he,  "than  we  thought,  and  its  earlier  stages  of  life, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  have  been  such  as  to  intensify  rather  than  relieve  our  perplexity. 
Moreover,  it  has  always  been  known  that  our  lower  companions  in  life  were  sharers 
in  our  lot  of  suffering,  the  animal  world  being  full  of  pain,  with  no  moral  ground  so 
much  as  suggested  for  so  great  a  fact.  ...  If  we  say  that  God  is  watching  over  his 
world,  he  is  watching  a  world  so  full  of  misery  that  we  often  think  if  we  were  in  his 
place  we  would  annihilate  it,  if  we  could  not  mitigate  its  agonies.  How,  we  ask,  can 
this  be  the  world  of  that  good  God  of  whom  Jesus  spoke?  In  this  indictment  here 
may  easily  be  one-sidedness  and  exaggeration,  but  all  the  world  knows  that  behind 
it  there  is  a  dread  array  of  facts."2 

While  Clarke  asks  concerning  divine  goodness,  not  raising  the  ques- 
tion of  omnipotence,  Johnson  brings  out  another  aspect  of  the  problem. 

"The  problem  of  evil,"  says  he,  "owes  its  gravity  almost  wholly  to  the  assertion 
of  God's  omnipotence  .  .  .  when  some  misfortune  has  befallen  us,  or  our  friends,  or 
the  community  in  which  we  live,  when  the  long-drawn-out  tragedies  of  wasting  illness, 
of  droughts  and  floods,  of  famine  and  forest  fires  have  appalled  us,  when  an  earthquake 
has  laid  a  great  city  in  ruins,  killing  and  maiming  thousands  of  men,  women,  and  chil- 
dren, and  entailing  wretchedness  upon  thousands  more  who  have  lost  their  all,  we 

1  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  p.  429. 

3  Clarke,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,  pp.  433  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  45 

have  tried,  perhaps,  to  meet  the  situation  manfully.  .  .  .  But  the  question  ultimate- 
ly is:  Is  not  the  Omnipotent  one  also  the  author  of  nature?  Did  He  not  foresee 
these  and  all  the  other  horrible  things  that  would  necessarily  flow  from  it?  And  why 
did  He  not,  if  omnipotent,  establish  an  order  free  from  such  dreadfulness?"3 

In  short,  there  would  be  no  serious  problem  of  evil,  if  God  is  not 
absolutely  good,  for  he  might  then  be  fallible  and  make  evil;  neither 
would  there  be  any  problem  if  God  is  not  omnipotent,  for  then  he  might 
be  unable  to  eliminate  evil  at  once.  The  real  difficulty  arises  then, 
when  we  want  to  affirm  both  divine  omnipotence  and  God's  absolute 
goodness  in  the  presence  of  physical  evil  which  is  due  to  the  creator 
himself,  if  he  be  the  sole  author  of  the  universe. 

Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem 

1.  Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Absolute  Omni- 
potence.    1.  Denial  of  the  Intrinsic  Reality  of  Evil.     Physical    evil 
being  felt  as  pain  in  the  living  organism,  either  bodily  or  mental,  let  us 
first  consider  evil  in  its  pleasure  and  pain  categories.    The  most  obvious 
solution  is  to  deny  the  intrinsic  reality  of  pain  in  order  to  assert  both 
divine  omnipotence  and  goodness  in  the  absolute  sense.     Bradley  be- 
lieves that  pain  as  fact  cannot  be  conjured  away  from  the  universe 
but  pain  can  be  so  outbalanced  by  pleasure  that  it  is  practically  swallowed 
up.     "It  is  a  common  experience,"  says  he,  "that  in  mixed  states  pain 
may  be  neutralized  by  pleasure  in  such  a  way  that  the  balance  is  decidedly 
pleasant.    And  hence  it  is  possible  that  in  the  universe  as  a  whole  we 
may  have  a  balance  of  pleasure,  and  in  the  total  result  no  residue  of 
pain. "4    "It  is  quite  certain  that  small  pains  are  often  wholly  swallowed 
up  in  a  larger  composite  pleasure.     If  painfulness  disappear  in  a  higher 
unity,  it  will  exist,  but  will  have  ceased  to  be  pain  when  considered  on 
the  whole.  "5    This  is  to  say  that  pain  exists  in  parts  or  as  finite  views? 
but  it  does  not  exist  in  the  Absolute  or  viewed  from  the  Absolute  point. 

2.  The  Dilemma  Involved:    Either  Supreme  Goodness  or  Absolute 
Omnipotence  must  be  Denied.     The  view  above  mentioned,  however, 
meets  severe  criticism  at  the  hands  of  James6  and  McTaggart.    They 
contend  that  even  if  it  could  be  proved  that  pain  is  swallowed  up  in 
pleasure,  the  fact  would  still  remain  that  we  think  it  evil  when  we  feel 
pain.    Evil  as  real  could  be  eliminated  by  an  omnipotent  God7  if  he  is 

3  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  pp.  102-104. 

4  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  p.  157. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  198. 

"James,  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  pp.  116ff. 

7  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  pp.  208-210. 


46  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

absolutely  good.  The  conclusion  is  that  we  must  either  give  up  the 
absolute  omnipotence  or  the  supreme  goodness  of  God  in  the  presence 
of  evil. 

McTaggart  offers  a  form  of  the  first  alternative  which  practically 
denies  divine  goodness  by  considering  it  as  different  in  kind  from  ours. 
He  likens  God  who  permits  evil  in  his  universe  to  a  father  who  should 
permit  his  son's  leg  to  be  broken  and  then  decide  for  amputation  as  he 
is  sure  of  its  complete  cure.  McTaggart  urges  that  if  man  did  this  we 
should  call  him  wicked.  Now,  in  what  way,  asks  he,  would  the  conduct 
of  an  omnipotent  God,  who  permitted  the  existence  of  evil,  differ  from 
the  conduct  of  such  man,  except  that  it  is  worse?  Why  is  God  called 
good,  when  his  action  is  asserted  to  be  such  as  would  prove  a  man  to  be 
monster  of  wickedness?  Mill  declares  that  rather  than  worship  such  a 
God  he  would  go  to  hell,  if  God  has  qualities  which  would  be  called 
wicked  in  man.  We  can  affirm  the  absolute  power  of  God  only  by 
giving  up  the  conception  of  his  supreme  goodness,  unless  we  make  his 
goodness  different  from  ours  as  Pascal  and  Mansel  did.8 

The  other  alternative  is  the  attempt  to  save  the  goodness  of  God  by 
giving  up  the  reality  of  his  omnipotence,  while  retaining  the  name.  In 
this  attempt,  evil  is  made  inevitable  as  a  consequence  of  human  free  will, 
because  free  will  implies  free  choice  to  do  wrong.  It  is  logically  impos- 
sible to  make  the  world  of  free  agents  free  from  evil.  And  omnipotence 
is  so  modified  that  it  does  not  include  ability  to  do  the  impossible.  But 
McTaggartt  contends  that  "a  God  who  cannot  create  a  universe  in  which 
all  men  have  free  will,  and  which  is  at  the  same  time  free  from  all  evil, 
is  not  an  omnipotent  God,  since  there  is  one  thing  which  he  cannot  do.  .  . 
Even  if  there  were  any  ground  for  believing  that  the  absence  of  evil 
from  the  universe  would  violate  such  laws  as  the  law  of  Contradiction 
or  of  Excluded  Middle,  it  is  clear  that  a  God  who  is  bound  by  any  laws 
is  not  omnipotent,  since  he  cannot  alter  them.  "9  McTaggart  thus  denies 
omnipotence  in  the  absolute  sense  and  advices  us  not  to  use  the  word 
if  any  modification  is  necessary,  for  then  it  implies,  in  his  understanding, 
a  limitation  to  the  divine  power.  But  theologians'  definition  of  omni- 
potence is,  as  we  have  seen,  quite  different  from  his.  They  think  that 
the  divine  power  is  not  limited  if  God  cannot  do  the  self-contradictory 
or  the  impossible  by  the  nature  of  things.  And  evil,  they  hold,  is  logically 
as  well  as  practically  inevitable  by  the  nature  of  things  in  this  evolving 

8  Pascal,  Works,  ed.  Bmnschvicg  II,  348. 
•McTaggart,  op.  cit.,  pp.  211-217. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  47 

world.  Let  us  then  examine  the  various  propositions  offered  as  solutions 
of  the  problem  by  those  who  affirm  a  modified  omnipotence. 

II.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Modified  Omnipotence. 
1.  Evil  as  Consequence  of  Sin.  A  solution  of  the  problem  of  evil  general- 
ly held  by  traditional  theology  attributes  the  cause  of  evil  to  men  the 
creatures,  instead  of  God  the  creator.  Charles  Hodge  and  A.  H.  Strong, 
e.g.,  affirming  a  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  by  transcendentalizing 
God  above  human  things,  ascribe  the  cause  of  evil  to  men.  Against 
Mill's  fearful  indictment  of  Nature,10  her  storms,  earthquakes,  decay 
and  death,  Strong  asserts  that  Christianity  regards  these  as  due  to  man, 
not  to  God;  as  incidents  of  sin;  as  the  groans  of  creation,  crying  out  for 
relief  and  liberty.  The  imperfection  of  the  world,  he  concludes,  is  due 
to  sin.  God  made  it  with  reference  to  the  Fall, — the  stage  was  arranged 
for  the  great  drama  of  sin  and  redemption  which  was  to  be  enacted 
thereon.  "n  Curtis  follows  this  traditional  theology,  as  he  takes  death 
to  be  a  result  of  depravity.  "Death  should  be, "  says  he,  "  to  the  Chris- 
tian consciousness  an  abnormal  event,  a  monstrous  action  of  physical 
law  against  man,  to  express  in  every  movement  of  its  loathsome  and 
appalling  process  God's  boundless  hatred  of  sin.  "12  The  corruption  of 
the  natural  world  is  thus  regarded  as  due  to  human  sin  and  the  existence 
of  evil  must  be  solely  attributed  to  the  Adamic  race,  no  matter  how  this 
race  be  originated.  God  simply  permits  it  for  his  retributive  justice 
and  lets  men  suffer  the  consequence  of  their  sin. 

This  view,  however,  is  not  generally  held  today,  because  we  are  keen- 
ly conscious  that  such  natural  calamities  as  earthquakes,  draughts,  floods 
etc.,  are  too  superhuman  to  be  ascribed  to  the  consequence  of  our  sin. 
So  we  pass  to  more  adequate  solutions. 

2.  Evil  as  Necessary  to  the  Moral  System.  Harris,  following  the 
traditional  theory,  attributes  the  cause  of  evil  largely  to  human  mis- 
demeanor.13 Yet  as  he  is  conscious  that  some  physical  evils  such  as 
earthquakes  and  storms  cannot  be  ascribed  to  human  causation,  he  seeks 
to  account  for  these  by  the  very  nature  of  moral  system. 

"Susceptibility,"  says  he,  "to  privation  of  good,  to  suffering  and  sorrow  is  essen- 
tial to  the  existence  of  a  moral  system  consisting  of  finite  persons  under  the  government 
of  God.  It  is  essential  to  law  that  it  be  sanctioned  by  the  punishment  of  transgressors. 
But  a  being  not  susceptible  of  suffering  nor  of  the  privation  of  good  could  not  be  pun- 
ished for  any  transgression.  God  has  so  constituted  the  universe  that  a  finite  person 

10  Mill,  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  29. 

11  Strong,    Systematic    Theology,   pp.    402  ff. 
"Curtis,   The  Christian  Faith,  p.  205. 

13  Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  p.  230. 


48  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

in  it  can  realize  good  only  in  conformity  with  its  fundamental  law  of  love,  and  that 
a  life  of  selfishness  can  issue  only  in  the  loss  of  all  that  is  really  good  and  in  the  suffering 
of  evil.  But  such  a  constitution  of  the  universe  is  possible  only  if  finite  persons  exist 
capable  of  joy  or  sorrow,  and  so  capable  of  experiencing  good  or  evil."14 
The  very  nature  of  a  moral  system  thus  requires  evil  as  the  contrast  or 
correlate  of  good.  God  creating  a  moral  system  could  not  dispense 
with  evil.  This  does  not,  Harris  believes,  impair  the  omnipotence  of  the 
creator.  It  is  as  absurd,  says  he,  to  suppose  that  God  might  create  a 
person  with  a  perfectly  holy  character,  as  to  suppose  his  creating  one 
a  hundred  years  old.  An  omnipotent  God  in  the  modified  sense  need  not 
be  able  to  do  what  is  impossible  in  the  nature  of  things. 

3.  Evil  as  a  Means  of  Moral  Education.  This  theory  is  a  variation 
of  the  preceding  one.  It  is  different  in  the  sense  that  the  disciplinary 
aspect  of  evil  as  necessity  for  chastisement  dominates  in  the  foregoing 
conception  of  moral  system,  while  the  educational  theory  lays  more 
emphasis  on  the  positive  use  of  evils,  physical  and  mental,  as  means  for 
the  training  of  character.  "In  the  life  of  moral  beings,"  says  Clarke, 
"physical  evil  is  not  useless.  As  spirits  could  not  live  an  embodied 
life  without  pain,  so  probably  they  could  not  be  trained  in  character 
without  hardship  and  suffering. "15  "Of  the  evil  in  the  world,"  says 
Brown,  "it  is  true  that  it  is  used  by  God  to  promote  the  Christian  end. 
However  difficult  it  may  be  to  account  for  its  presence,  the  fact  remains 
that  now  that  it  is  here,  it  is  overruled  for  good.  Through  contact 
with  suffering  and  sin,  man  learns  lessons  of  inestimable  value  to  himself; 
struggling  to  overcome  them,  he  not  only  grows  in  character  himself, 
but  he  comes  to  understand  more  clearly  the  character  of  God.  "16  Sup- 
porting the  educational  theory  Brown  says  further  that  through  suffering 
man  learns  lessons  of  the  highest  importance  for  his  welfare  and  training. 
"The  educational  significance  of  pain  is  one  of  the  lessons  most  clearly 
taught  by  modern  science.  Psychology  shows  us  that  the  capacity  for 
pain  enters  into  the  very  structure  of  consciousness,  and  is  an  indis- 
pensable element  in  our  equipment  for  life.  By  the  law  of  contrast  it 
makes  possible  our  highest  pleasures.  Through  it  we  become  conscious 
of  our  need,  and  are  warned  of  the  approach  of  danger.  The  higher  the 
development,  the  greater  the  capacity,  and  the  more  important  the 
function  of  pain.  "17  The  educational  theory  shows  that  pain  is  as  nec- 
essary for  the  development  of  the  animal  as  for  that  of  man  but  with  the 

M  Harris,  op.  cit.,  pp.  223  ff. 

18  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.   154. 

19  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  204. 
17  Ibid.,  p.  206. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  49 

advent  of  man  the  problem  enters  upon  a  new  stage.  To  the  suffering 
of  the  body  being  added  the  suffering  of  the  mind,  pain  now  becomes  a 
means  of  moral  as  well  as  physical  training.  God  is  justified  in  using 
physical  and  mental  evil  for  the  training  of  moral  life  because  man  can- 
not develop  a  vigorous  character  except  through  hardship  and  suffering. 
It  is  not  for  retribution  but  for  the  betterment  of  humanity  that  God 
uses  evil  as  means.  Thus  it  may  be  held  that  God  is  good  as  well  as 
omnipotent  in  the  modified  sense,  since  God  cannot  find  a  better  means 
for  man's  spiritual  good  than  the  occasional  experience  of  evil. 

4.  Evil  as  Incidental  to  Life  Process.  The  final  and  most  plausible 
theory  combines  the  results  of  all  foregoing  considerations  in  a  larger 
outlook  on  life,  and  announces,  though  hesitatingly,  that  physical  evils 
are  unavoidable  or  incidental  to  life  in  evolution.  Clarke  in  his  later 
work,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,  recognizing  the  blackness  of  evil  in  a 
stronger  light,  says  that  suffering  is  no  intruder  in  the  world;  it  belongs 
to  the  system  that  we  are  proposing  to  attribute  to  the  good  God.  All 
observation  shows  that  it  is  the  nature  of  the  world  to  contain  both  pain 
and  pleasure.  Animals  live  together;  and  while  their  association  doubt- 
less enhances  their  pleasure,  it  also  offers  boundless  opportunity  for 
producing  pain.  Consequently,  in  the  living  world  below  man  physical 
enjoyment  and  suffering  have  always  existed  together.  Which  has  been 
the  greater  no  one  can  know.  When  we  come  to  the  human  race  the 
conditions  are  the  same,  except  that  here  there  are  more  ways  for  pleasure 
and  pain  to  enter.  Here  nerves  are  more  sensitive,  bringing  pleasure 
and  pain  more  exquisite.  Here  injury  is  easy  and  certain.  But  here, 
besides,  suffering  is  mental  as  well  as  physical.  Man  thinks,  loves,  hates. 
He  loves  and  loses,  and  the  nobler  the  love  the  sorer  the  bereavement. 
He  hates,  too,  and  hatred  is  bitter,  and  anger  is  painful.  So  for  men  as 
well  as  for  animals  it  appears  that  the  system  of  life  is  one  in  which 
pleasure  and  pain  are  blended.  Neither  of  the  two  has  been  brought  in 
from  without.  The  order  of  the  existing  world  produces  both,  and  if 
this  is  a  good  God's  world,  then  both  exist  in  the  world  of  a  good  God. 
Abnormal  doings  of  men  destroy  the  normal  balance  of  the  two,  and  give 
sad  increase  to  the  pain  as  truly  as  pleasure  enters  into  the  scheme  of  hu- 
man life.  If  suffering  is  in  the  scheme  of  life,  it  must  have  some  signifi- 
cance in  the  system.  Suffering  is  educative,  and  stands  forth  as  a  teacher 
for  whose  instruction  there  is  no  substitute.  It  is  doubtful,  says  Clarke, 
whether,  without  the  discipline  of  pain,  any  part  of  the  animal  world 
could  have  advanced  to  the  possibility  of  man.  "When  we  come  to 
human  life,  how  many  out  of  a  deep  heart  have  sung  the  praise  of  sorrow 


50  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

as  a  wise  teacher  of  the  soul!  In  the  light  of  experience  we  may  fairly 
claim  a  place  for  pain  by  the  side  of  pleasure  in  the  system  of  a  good  God 
who  is  training  life  toward  perfection."18 

The  same  theory  is  expounded  by  James  Ward  more  from  the  aspect 
of  evolution.  Men  are  regarded  to  be  co-workers  with  God.  As  we 
shall  see  later,  Ward's  position  entirely  approximates  that  of  Johnson 
and  McTaggart  who  deny  omnipotence  for  a  similar  reason;  but  Ward 
holds  the  conception  of  modified  omnipotence  similar  to  that  of  the 
theologians  whose  theories  we  have  just  considered. 

"Setting  out  from  where  we  are,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Many,"  says  Ward, 
"we  have  no  ground  for  assuming  a  Creator  who  does  everything  but  only  a  Creator 
whose  creatures  create  in  turn.  The  real  world  must  be  the  joint  result  of  God  and 
man,  unless  we  are  to  deny  the  reality  of  that  in  us  which  leads  us  to  the  idea  of  God 
at  all.  .  .  .  Then  where  the  Many  have  some  initiative — where  development  is 
epigenetic — contingency  and  conflict,  fallibility  and  peccability  seem  inevitable."19 
Ward  is  confronted  here  with  the  old  objection  that  if  God  is  absolutely 
omnipotent,  there  should  be  nothing  inevitable  which  he  cannot  remove. 
Ward,  however,  does  not  take  omnipotence  to  be  of  such  an  absolute 
character,  for  he  holds  that  God  to  act  must  emerge  from  absolute  inde- 
terminateness,  and  then  he  could  only  do  what  is  possible;  though  what 
is  possible  would  be  determined,  of  course,  entirely  by  what  God  is.  To 
proclaim  creation,  says  Ward,  restricted  by  determinate  possibilities 
to  be  an  idea  derogatory  to  the  sovereign  majesty  of  God  is  but  blind 
adulation,  for  it  really  amounts  to  denying  that  God  is  himself  a  definite 
being  at  all,  and  is  either  intellectually  or  morally  consistent. 

"Even  if  there  be  a  God,"  says  Ward,  "he  certainly  has  not  made  the  world 
what  it  is  to  be,  but  has  rather  endowed  it  with  talents  to  enable  it  to  work  out  its 
own  perfection  in  conjunction  with  himself.  This  working  out  is  what  we  call  experi- 
ence, and  experience  can  never  presuppose  the  knowledge  or  the  skill  that  is  only 
gained  by  means  of  it.  Where  several  possibilities  are  open  a  creature  acting  on  its 
own  initiative  can  only  find  out  the  right  one  by  way  of  trial  and  often  of  error.  Such 
error  we  may  say  is  an  evil;  but  we  cannot  straightway  call  it  a  superfluous,  still  less 
an  absolute  evil,  if  it  is  an  inevitable  incident  of  experience  as  such,  and  if  in  general  the 
experience  is  worth  what  it  costs."20 

But  still  there  are  those  other  physical  evils,  such  as  storms,  floods, 
pestilence,  and  earthquake,  that  can  hardly  be  regarded  as  the  direct 
consequence  of  incipient  and  imperfect  experience.  Can  it  be  said  that 
these  are  not  absolute  nor  superfluous  evils?  In  attempting  to  deal  with 
this  question  Ward  recalls  another  character  of  the  world's  evolution. 

18  Clarke,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,  pp.  442-445.    See  also,  An  Outline  of  Chris- 
tian Theology,  pp.  153  8. 

19  Ward,  The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.  356. 
"Ibid.,  pp.  359  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  51 

The  life  and  progress  of  society,  all  its  spontaneity ,  initiative  and  individu- 
ality, would  be  ineffective  without  its  conservative  elements  of  sta- 
bility— habit,  custom,  law,  and  the  like.  Just  as  friction  which  renders 
locomotion  possible  is  also  a  retarding  force,  we  cannot  have  one  without 
the  other.  The  disadvantages  then  are  neither  absolute  evils  nor  in 
general  superfluous  evils.21  Ward  holds  that  the  idea  of  a  world  the 
parts  of  which  are  in  no  way  to  limit  each  other  is  as  unthinkable  as  the 
idea  of  an  absolutely  omnipotent  God  who  is  to  create  it.  "To  object 
that  God  himself  can  only  be  finite,  and  must  be  limited  from  without, 
because  he  cannot  override  eternal  truths,  is  the  merest  sophistry. 
The  demand  for  absoluteness  of  this  sort  is  a  demand  not  for  God  but  for 
the  Indeterminate,  a  supreme  unity  of  opposites  which  is  the  same  as 
nothing."22  The  point  is  that  our  world  is  a  world  of  many  who  are 
created  with  a  certain  amount  of  initiative.  Their  interaction  produces 
mutual  check  as  well  as  impetus.  It  involves  destruction,  disease, 
waste,  and  suffering.  Thus  understood,  physical  evils  are  contingently 
present  as  an  incident  to  progress. 

5.  Summary.  The  position  of  the  advocate  of  modified  omnipotence 
with  reference  to  the  problem  of  evil  may  be  summarized  in  a  few  words: 
Evil  is  necessary  or  unavoidable  to  the  moral  system.  Life  expresses 
itself  in  pleasure  and  pain,  good  and  evil  categories;  one  would  be  impos- 
sible without  its  correlate.  Evil  is  incidental  to  the  evolving  world, 
though  some  theologians  hope  for  the  final  elimination  of  all  evil  when 
the  creative  task  of  God  is  consummated.  Life  is  meaningless  without 
its  task  of  conquering  evil.  God  had  to  create  life  with  its  incidental 
evils  or  else  give  up  his  creation  of  life  altogether.  Since  the  rational 
God  could  not  do  the  self-contradictory,  he  could  not  create  life  without 
suffering;  for  suffering  is  a  logical  implication  of  living  organism.  The 
existence  of  evil,  then,  cannot  be  reflection  on  God's  omnipotence,  since 
it  is  not  limitation  from  outside  but  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  things 
which  he  has  created. 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  this  same  theory  is  used  by  those 
who  deny  omnipotence.  Johnson  and  McTaggart,  e.g.,  interpret  this 
very  fact  as  the  sign  of  non-omnipotence  because  the  imperfect  nature 
of  created  existence  reflects  the  limitations  under  which  the  creator 
carried  out  his  work.  We  pass,  then,  to 

III.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Denying  Omnipotence.  There 
are  in  the  main  two  theories,  one  of  which  denies  omnipotence  because  of 

21  Ward,   op.   cit.,   pp.   358-360. 
"Ibid.,  pp.  439  ff. 


52  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

God's  internal  limitations,  while  the  other  introduces  a  secondary  power 
which  externally  limits  the  free  exercise  of  the  divine  power.  The  for- 
mer is  represented  by  Johnson,  the  latter  by  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolu- 
tion. Mill  and  McTaggart  belong  to  both  as  they  see  limitations  of  the 
divine  power  both  externally  and  internally,  although  they  do  not 
introduce  the  rival  power  of  evil.  Omitting  Mill's  and  McTaggart's 
account  we  will  confine  ourselves  to  the  typical  arguments  given  by 
Johnson  and  by  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution. 

1.  Internal    Limitation    Theory.     Johnson    mildly    affirming    the 
incidental  character  of  evil  as  a  limitation  in  the  nature  of  things,  ex- 
pounds his  hypothesis,  as  already  mentioned,  that  the  good  God  may 
have  had  to  choose  the  least  of  two  evils,  namely,  either  a  world  without 
life,  or  a  world  with  life  and  its  incidental  evil.     Johnson  undertakes 
to  show  that  God,  being  limited  in  power,  could  not  have  chosen  a  better 
alternative  than  the  present  world  with  life  and  incidental  evil. 

"All  the  exuberant  life,"  says  he,  "and  joyfulness  of  the  animated  world  have 
come  into  being  not  in  spite  of  the  adverse  influences  and  obstacles  that  every  species 
has  to  encounter,  but  directly  because  of  those  conditions.  The  difficulty  of  finding 
food,  the  alertness  and  activity  that  are  required  every  day  in  the  avoidance  or  thwart- 
ing of  hostile  influences,  the  battles  that  have  to  be  fought,  and  the  sharpening  of  its 
wits  in  consequence — all  these  are  the  very  cause  and  sourse  of  the  exuberant  happi- 
ness that  characterizes  nature  through  its  length  and  breadth.  "23 
Johnson's  contention  is  that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  the  very  condi- 
tion of  progress,  but  God  who  could  not  have  in  his  choice  a  better 
method  than  this  evolutionary  process  which  necessarily  involves  inciden- 
tal evil  cannot  properly  be  regarded  as  omnipotent.  In  contrast  with 
Mill's  pessimistic  accusation,24  Johnson  takes  a  melioristic  attitude 
toward  the  existing  evil,  but  his  conclusion  as  we  have  seen  in  a  previous 
chapter  (Evolution),  is  this,  that  God  who  has  an  evolutionary  task, 
though  ultimately  victorious,  of  eliminating  evil,  should  not  be  called 
almighty  but  simply  greatly  powerful. 

When  we  compare  this  view  with  the  argument  of  Ward  presented 
previously  (II.  4  above),  we  note  that  both  writers  bring  foreward  the 
same  conception,  making  evil  incidental  to  life,  but  that  Ward  affirms 
omnipotence  while  Johnson  denies  it  exactly  for  the  same  reasons. 
The  question  of  omnipotence  or  non-omnipotence  then  becomes  merely  a 
verbal  one,  since  the  content  is  the  same  while  different  in  labelling. 

2.  External  Limitation  Theory.     WTe  now  consider  another  inter- 
esting theory  of  non-omnipotence  by  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution. 

23  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  pp.  104  ff . 

24  Mill,   Three  Essays  on  Religion,  pp.  28-37. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  53 

The  solution  here  offered  is  a  dualistic  one:  God  is  inherently  able  to 
do  anything  whatever,  even  to  remake  the  law  of  contradiction  when  it 
involves  evil  to  life.  So  the  world  in  the  process  of  evolution  would  have 
no  incidental  evils  but  for  the  intrusion  of  the  devil  into  the  workshop 
of  God,  causing  maladjustments  which  God  is  now  amending  with  in- 
cessant effort.  Repudiating  all  the  theories  offered  in  favor  of  affirming 
modified  omnipotence,  the  author's  intention  is  to  show  that  God  is 
not  internally  but  externally  limited.  Let  us  follow  his  contention, 
first  taking  up  his  refutation  of  other  theories  and  then  his  hypothesis  of 
Devil. 

(A)  Refutation  of  Other  Theories  Explaining  the  Existence  of  Evil. 
(1)  Evil  as  Due  to  Free  Will.  The  first  victim  is  the  human  causation 
theory  which  holds  that  evil  is  a  consequence  or  corollary  to  man's  free 
will.  We  have  seen  it  held  by  Strong  and  shall  see  it  again  in  the  next 
chapter  when  Hodge  discusses  the  problem  of  sin.  This  theory  as  we 
have  observed  is  generally  given  up  by  recent  theologians.  Such  evils 
as  floods,  storms,  earthquakes,  pestilences,  are  not  traceable  to  any  exer- 
cise of  men's  free  will,  and  only  remotely,  says  the  author,  can  they  be 
said  to  exercise  any  influence  on  free  will.25 

(2)  Evil  as  Educational.  The  educational  theory  also  is  not  asserted 
in  its  full  strength  by  recent  theologians  such  as  Clarke  and  Sheldon,  as 
they  are  conscious  of  its  weaknesses;  Brown  asserts  it  frankly  yet  not 
without  hesitation.  Here  we  meet  a  strenuous  opposition  by  the  author 
of  Evil  and  Evolution.  He  admits  that  calamity  and  suffering  have 
their  instructive  uses,  but  it  is  just  as  rational  to  believe  that  these  things 
do  frequently  tend  in  exactly  the  opposite  direction.26  Mill  contends 
that  both  good  and  evil  tend  to  fructify,  good  producing  more  good  and 
evil  more  evil.  Health,  strength,  wealth,  knowledge,  virtue  facilitate 
the  acquisition  of  more  good.  Bodily  illness  renders  the  body  more 
susceptible  of  disease;  it  produces  incapacity  of  exertion,  sometimes 
debility  of  mind.  Poverty  is  the  parent  of  a  thousand  mental  and  moral 
evils.  What  is  still  worse,  to  be  injured  or  oppressed,  when  habituated, 
lowers  the  whole  tone  of  the  character.  All  bad  qualities  are  strength- 
ened by  habit,  and  all  vices  and  follies  tend  to  spread.  Mill's  conten- 
tion27 is  that  evil  is  sometimes  educative  toward  the  production  of  good 
but  more  often  it  is  a  sheer  destructive  force  which  cannot  be  compensated 
by  the  good  it  effects. 

25  Evil  and  Evolution,   pp.    14-18. 

26  Ibid.,  pp.  24-26. 
"Mill,  op.  tit.,  pp.  28-37. 


54  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

"Take  any  great  catastrophe  of  history,"  says  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution, 
"the  Lisbon  earthquake  for  instance.  In  about  eight  minutes  fifty  thousand  people 
were  crushed  to  death,  or  swallowed  up  alive  or  devoured  by  the  inrushing  sea.  Who 
will  venture  to  maintain  that  the  world  has  derived  from  that  awful  event  any  moral 
or  spiritual  lesson  at  all  in  proportion  to  its  magnitude?  .  .  .  Such  display  of  power, 
so  far  from  educating  or  ennobling  the  world,  may  tend  only  to  make  men,  in  their 
hearts,  cringe  and  cower  like  slaves  under  the  heel  of  a  despot.  .  .  .  The  educational 
theory  of  evil  by  itself  will  not  do.  Life  with  its  trials  and  troubles  undoubtedly  is 
an  education.  .  .  .  But  depend  upon  it,  these  educational  successes  are  brands  plucked 
from  the  burning.  They  are  but  a  mere  salvage  from  the  wreck.  To  say  the 
least,  they  are  largely  counterbalanced  by  failures.  This  life  was  never  planned  and 
evil  was  never  'permitted'  for  the  sake  of  them."28 

The  author  then  takes  up  the  question  of  immortality  and  the  idea  of 
this  life  as  preparation  for  the  next,  since  we  are  often  told  that  the 
purposefof  this  life  is  our  training  for  eternity.  How  can  it  be,  asks  he, 
that  an  educational  course  of  a  mere  twenty  years,  fifty  years,  seventy 
years,  could  ever  have  been  deliberately  arranged  for  with  a  view  to  its 
effect  for  all  eternity?  Life  is  a  mere  flash  in  the  pan,  a  tick  of  the  clock, 
a  bubble  on  the  stream.  What  would  you  think  of  the  wisdom  of  the 
father  who  sent  his  child  to  school  for  half  a  day  to  get  an  education 
that  should  equip  him  for  life?  Yet  that  father's  idea  would  be  wisdom 
itself  compared  with  the  folly  of  making  a  miserable  three  score  years  and 
ten  a  schooling  time  for  all  eternity.  Besides,  the  author  urges,  if  souls 
cannot  be  trained  without  evil,  there  would  be  no  end  of  evil,  since 
growth  is  the  very  law  of  life.  If  this  life  is  to  have  any  hereafter  there 
must  be. further  progress  and  development.  Character  must  advance 
in  power  and  worth,  free  will  must  have  greater  freedom,  and  goodness 
must  shine  purer  and  brighter.  But  how  can  that  all  be  if  God  himself 
cannot  train  character  without  suffering?  The  truth  is,  says  the  author, 
that  God  can  do  it,  and  he  does  do  it.  To  illustrate: 

"If  you  watch  a  troop  of  healthy  boys  at  play,"  says  the  author,  "every  breath 
they  draw  is  an  exultation;  every  muscular  movement  is  a  delight;  every  struggle  is 
intoxication;  mentally,  morally,  physically,  the  lads  are  developing  not  only  without 
pain,  but  with  positive  rapture  of  enjoyment,  and  broadly  speaking,  that,  as  far  as 
we  can  see,  appears  to  be  the  creator's  method  throughout  the  whole  realm  of  animal 
and  spiritual  life,  wherever  that  life  is  healthy  and  conditions  normal.  ...  In  all 
the  higher  ranges  of  human  faculty,  who  are  the  people  who  develop  most  rapidly 
and  most  fully?  Is  it  they  who  are  impelled  by  pain?  Emphatically  not.  .  .  . 
Taking  the  whole  world  over,  pleasure  is  a  greater  promoter  of  human  development 
than  pain — infinitely  greater.  Pain,  no  doubt,  has  played  a  stupendous  part  in  the 
world's  evolution,  but  an  infinitely  greater  part  has  been  played  by  the  lusty  vigor  of 
animal  life,  the  insatiable  keenness  of  intellect,  the  love  of  kith  and  kin,  the  placid 
enjoyment  of  home,  the  absorbing  delight  in  congenial  work,  the  exultation  of  achieve- 
ment, and  the  approbation  of  those  around."39 

™Evil  and  Evolution,  pp.  28-31. 
"Ibid.,  pp.  32-34. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  55 

With  this  eloquent  literary  appeal  the  author  concludes  that  sorrow 
and  suffering  are  unnecesary  as  educative  means;  that  if  God  cannot 
develop  character  without  use  of  evil  he  cannot  be  omnipotent;  that  in 
reality  there  are  many  instances  in  which  he  can  do  and  is  doing  it 
without  the  instrumentality  of  evil.  Evil  then  is  not  necessarily  the 
condition  of  life  process;  but  it  may  be  externally  an  intruder  into  the 
universe  of  a  good  God. 

(3)  Evolutionary  Theory  of  Evil.  The  author  then  takes  up  the 
evolutionary  explanation  of  evil  which  is  not  essentially  different  from 
the  educational  theory,  although  the  outlook  is  wider  as  it  includes  the 
whole  domain  of  nature  and  life.  The  theory  of  evil  as  incidental  to 
life  in  its  development  is  held  as  we  have  seen  by  Clarke  and  Ward  who 
affirm  onnipotence,  and  also  by  Johnson  who  denies  it.  Why,  the  author 
inquires,  must  the  grand  scheme  of  things  move  on  upward  through  a 
protracted  series  of  evolutions  characterized  by  all  that  is  tragic  and 
fearful,  instead  of  unfolding  like  a  rose  under  June  sunbeams?  Why  does 
not  a  railway  or  a  factory  work  with  perfect  smoothness  and  efficiency 
from  the  outset?  Of  course  it  is  because  those  directors  and  employees 
are  deficient  in  knowledge,  experience  and  skill.  Suppose  that  it  is 
quite  within  the  manager's  power  to  make  his  system  so  complete  and 
well  organized  that  no  accident  can  ever  happen.  Will  he  then  be 
justified  in  leaving  some  flaws  that  lead  to  accidents?  The  manager 
may  say,  "Yes,  I  knew  there  were  faults,  and  I  saw  they  would  probably 
lead  to  accidents.  But  in  the  long  run  it  is  better  that  there  should  be 
some  liability  to  accident.  It  tends  to  promote  good  order  among  pas- 
sengers, and  it  develops  vigilance  and  care,  skill  and  devotion  among 
the  staff. "  But  can  you  conceive,  asks  the  author,  of  a  perfectly  good 
and  human  manager  who  sees  faults  in  his  arrangements,  who  has  it 
in  his  power  to  remedy  them  and  to  avert  all  accident,  and  who  also 
has  it  in  his  power  to  ensure  all  the  characteristics  he  desires  in  passengers 
and  staff  without  accidents  but,  who,  nevertheless,  prefers  to  carry  out 
his  ideas  by  malajustments?  You  cannot  conceive  of  such  a  railway 
manager;  but  that  is  just  your  conception  of  the  Creator  if  you  think  of 
him  as  a  Being  who  foresaw  the  dire  anguish  of  such  a  world  as  this  and 
deliberately  planned  it.30  Supposing  growth  to  be  the  law  of  life  every- 
where, it  is  inconceivable,  says  the  author,  to  have  ages  upon  ages  of 
dreadful  strife,  of  frightful  suffering,  of  ruinous  destruction,  and  then 
back  to  the  perfect  adjustment  which  might  have  been  planned  and 
secured  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  life! 

*°Evil  and  Evolution,  pp.  37-42. 


56  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

The  evolutionary  theory  in  explaining  evil  supposes  that  God  has 
certain  wise  purposes  to  attain  and  He  cannot,  though  omnipotent, 
attain  them  without  permitting  some  evil. 

"Imagine,  however,"  says  the  author,  "only  some  slight  and  insignificant  infu- 
sion of  evil,  but  the  Creator's  own  laws  of  life  and  progress  and  heredity  will  go  on 
expanding  and  developing  it  to  the  unutterable  misery  of  unborn  myriads,  and  as 
time  runs  on,  the  most  hideous  diseases,  the  fiercest  passions,  the  most  deadly  strife,  the 
most  revolting  cruelties — every  phase  and  form  of  evil  that  have  racked  and  tormen- 
ted the  world  lie  out  before  that  prescient  gaze.  .  .  .  We  find  it  incredible  that  a 
Being  capable  of  contriving  a  universe  so  full  of  perfection  as  we  see  this  to  be  should 
be  incapable  of  avoiding  these  flaws  and  faults  in  the  original  work  of  creation,  or  at 
all  events  of  correcting  them  when  the  effects  of  them  first  become  apparent.  If 
there  is  but  one  power  in  the  universe,  the  riddle  presented  by  the  facts  of  the  world 
around  us  is  wholly  insoluble.  But  if  there  is  a  second  power,  and  that  power  suffi- 
cient to  disturb  the  divinity-intended  order  of  things,  then  the  case  becomes  com- 
paratively intelligible.  "31 

The  point  is  that  God  who  could  create  such  a  stupendous  structure  as 
the  universe  with  its  beauty  of  many  perfections  and  harmonies,  should 
have  been  able  to  foresee  any  maladjustment  which  might  happen  in  the 
course  of  evolution  and  to  provide  its  remedy  for  them  before  they 
really  take  place  as  evil.  The  fact  that  this  is  not  the  case  speaks  loud 
for  the  hypothesis  of  introducing  the  Satanic  power  for  the  explanation. 

The  author  then  sums  up  his  contention  by  skilfuly  refuting  all  sorts 
of  instrumentary  theory  of  suffering  and  declares  conclusively  that  evil 
is  unnecessary  for  the  growth  of  life.  It  is  a  total  fallacy,  says  he,  to 
suppose  that  suffering  is  the  only  way  by  which  human  development  can 
be  brought  about.  In  ten  thousand  ways  the  Creator  is  doing  it  by 
the  very  reverse  of  this  all  around  us,  and  if  there  is  really  any  hope 
of  happy  existence  hereafter,  that  very  hope  refutes  the  supposition 
that  such  griefs  and  afflictions  as  have  to  be  endured  in  this  world  are 
really  essential  to  sound  and  healthy  development  of  human  nature. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  a  mother  who  has  lost  a  child.  The  suffering  mother  may 
undergo  a  spiritualization,  a  softening.  "She  may  be  purer,  stronger,  and  better 
for  her  suffering,  but  that  is  not  because  of  the  suffering,  but  because  of  a  new  con- 
sciousness of  sympathy  given  and  received.  Suffering  itself  is  evil,  and  nothing  but 
evil.  It  depresses  and  discourages;  it  weakens  and  destroys.  People  suffer  and  they 
degenerate  just  as  naturally  and  inevitably  as  plants  degenerate  in  cold,  gloom,  and 
ungenial  conditions.  Primarily  that  is  the  universal  tendency.  It  is  only  when  the 
broken  spirit,  in  its  distress,  becomes  conscious  that  it  is  breathing  in  an  atmosphere 
of  sympathy,  that  the  great  heart  of  the  universe  is  throbbing  in  suffering  with  it, 
that  in  spite  of  everything  it  begins  to  rise  and  exult  even  in  affliction.  It  is  just 
here — not  in  suffering  but  in  sympathy — lies  the  heart  of  the  great  mystery  of  evil 
in  its  power  to  benefit."32 

31  Op.  cit.,  pp.  45-46. 
38  Ibid.,  pp.  54-56. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  57 

Evil  can  be  utilized,  but  without  evil,  the  author  maintains,  life  would 
have  developed  far  better.  In  fact,  the  thing  that  develops  life  is  not 
evil  but  good,  not  sorrow  but  sympathy.  And  the  existence  of  evil  in 
this  world  inevitably  constitutes  an  indictment  against  the  omnipotence 
of  the  creator  God. 

(B)  Satanic  Solution.  Thus  rejecting  all  theories  which  tend  to 
justify  God  in  the  presence  of  evil  by  including  it  as  necessary  or  inevita- 
able  in  the  system  he  created,  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  urges 
that  if  you  admit  the  creatorship  and  the  beneficence  of  a  God  there  is 
no  reason  why  you  may  not  admit  the  possibility  of  existence  of  the 
power  and  the  malevolence  of  a  devil.  The  author  maintains  that  the 
maladjustments  in  the  scheme  of  creation  are  due  to  the  agency  of  Satan, 
and  are  in  no  way  to  be  ascribed  either  to  the  indifference  or  to  the  deliber- 
ate purpose  of  the  Creator.  "It  seems,"  says  he,  "just  as  reasonable  to 
regard  the  phenomena  of  creation  as  the  outcome  of  conflicting  princi- 
ples embodied  in  two  personalities,  and  such  a  view  of  things  leaves 
mankind  free  to  regard  one  as  wholly  good  and  the  other  wholly  bad."33 

Having  established  his  hypothesis  of  Satanic  invasion,  the  author 
meets  difficulties  arising  in  connection  with  his  assertion  that  God  could 
avoid  any  maladjustments,  unless  disturbed  by  a  foreign  power.  The  diffi- 
culties are  finally  reduced  to  one  point,  namely,  Could  God  avoid  evils 
which  seem  to  be  the  very  implication  of  life  itself  in  which  pleasure 
involves  its  correlative  pain,  good  its  evil,  and  vice  versa?  The  author 
affirms  that  it  is  possible;  he  explains  away  the  difficulty  with  two  main 
arguments.  The  first  of  them  is  that  the  God's  exception  to  law  points 
to  His  ability  to  avoid  any  evil.  The  author  seeks  its  proofs  in  the 
laws  of  nature  and  their  working.  Particles  of  matter,  for  instance, 
attract  each  other;  that  is  the  law  of  gravitation.  But  if  this  law  were 
absolutely  universal  in  its  operation,  the  particles  of  which  gases  are 
composed  would  be  drawn  together,  and  the  air  we  breathe  would  be  a 
physical  impossibility.34  Gravitation  does  indeed  still  retain  its  hold 
upon  them,  or  they  would  fly  off  into  space  altogether.  But  within 
certain  limits  they  appear  to  move  in  any  direction.  Here  you  would 
have  the  central  law  of  universe  not  "ceasing"  but  submissively  giving 
way  to  another  law.35  The  law  of  contraction  by  cold,  if  applied  univer- 
sally, would  cause  tremendous  disaster,  but  by  the  time  the  water 


a'/.,  p.  65. 
"Ibid.,  p.  74. 
38  Ibid.,  pp.  78  ff. 


58  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

has  become  ice  it  has  become  specifically  lighter  and  floats  on  the  top, 
thus  preventing  the  solidification  of  the  water,  and  protecting  from  the 
the  extremity  of  winter  cold  the  animal  and  vegetable  lite  below.  Again, 
if  the  change  from  the  fluid  to  the  solid  or  from  the  solid  to  the  fluid  came 
about  with  the  mere  raising  or  dropping  of  the  temperature  a  little  above 
or  below  32  degrees,  tremendous  volumes  of  water  would  be  almost 
instantaneously  solidified  into  ice,  and  the  ice  might  presently  be 
reconverted  into  water.  The  consequences  would  often  be  ruinous 
in  the  extreme.  But  the  law  of  latent  heat  comes  into  operation  and 
the  cataclysms  that  would  result  from  the  instantaneous  melting  of 
millions  upon  millions  of  tons  of  snow  upon  uplands  and  mountains  are 
entirely  averted.36  Nature,  says  the  author,  everywhere  shows  over- 
whelming evidence  of  having  been  designed  for  the  good  of  all  living 
things,  and  the  natural  thing  would  be  for  the  law  of  Nature  to  protect 
man  from  injury.  The  author's  contention  is  that  we  do  not  want 
miracles  to  counteract  the  inexorable  laws  of  Nature  but  secondary 
laws  to  be  provided  for  avoiding  atrocious  injury  of  life  through  the 
rigidity  of  the  primary  laws.  If  God  could  make  abundant  exceptions 
in  the  laws  of  Nature,  even  in  the  law  of  gravitation,  why  could  He  not 
make  more  exceptions  to  the  primary  laws  with  secondary  ones  on  every 
occasion  whenever  the  primary  laws  are  liable  to  do  injury  to  life?  The 
inconsistency  of  the  divine  providence  on  this  point  cannot  be  explained, 
the  author  holds,  except  by  introducing  the  disturbing  element  from 
outside,  namely,  a  devil. 

The  other  point  of  his  contention  is  that  a  perfect  world  is  possible 
with  a  kind  of  suffering  which  does  not  amount  to  evil  as  atrocious  as  we 
know  of.  Urging  the  probability  that  the  work  of  Creator  would  have 
been  perfect,  the  author  does  not  say  that  a  world  perfect  as  it  evolves 
from  the  hand  of  the  Creator  need  not  be,  and  could  not  be,  a  world 
entirely  void  of  all  possibility  of  suffering.  But  he  contends  that, 
compared  with  what  we  see  now,  it  would  have  been  infinitesimal,  and 
that  Nature  herself  would  have  operated  remedially.  To  illustrate, 
there  are  some  very  marvelous  ways  in  which  Nature  gives  us  warning 
of  danger.  If  she  wishes  to  preserve  you  from  blood-poisoning  by  foul 
air,  she  endows  you  with  a  keen  sense  of  smell.  If  Nature  wishes  to 
guard  you  from  the  danger  of  falling  over  a  precipice,  she  gives  you  an 
inexplicable  dread  of  the  brink  of  a  precipice.  Again,  Nature  seems 
to  have  contemplated  the  repair  of  physical  injury  to  the  body:  it  is 
difficult  to  conceive  that  the  loss  of  a  limb  might  ever  have  been  repaired, 

»  Op.  cit.,  pp.  75  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN   CURRENT  THEOLOGY  59 

but  there  are  facts  of  the  animal  world  which  suggest  that  even  this 
need  not  be  absolutely  inconceivable.  There  is  one  species  of  crab 
that,  if  chased  by  an  enemy,  will  throw  off  a  limb,  apparently  for  the 
purpose  of  diverting  the  attention  of  the  pursuer,  and  will  afterwards 
grow  another  limb.  Why  might  the  higher  organism  not  have  been 
endowed  with  a  power  possessed  by  the  lower?  Such  facts  of  Nature 
show  that  God  could  provide  with  natural  remedy  for  unnecessary 
suffering  or  injury  to  life,  but  the  fact  that  there  are  irremediable  evils 
in  the  existing  world  calls  for  some  other  way  of  explanation.  The  fact 
then,  the  author  asserts,  must  be  attributed  not  to  the  supremely  bene- 
volent God  but  to  a  Satanic,  diabolical  power  which  is  the  cause  of 
all  this  trouble.  And  if  the  hypothesis  of  this  alien  power  is  more 
acceptable,  the  idea  of  divine  omnipotence  of  course  must  be  given  up. 

Summary 

The  existence  of  evils  such  as  natural  disasters  and  calamities  caused 
by  earthquake,  flood,  drought,  etc.,  not  to  mention  epidemic  and  pestilence, 
makes  it  hard  for  us  to  believe  in  an  omnipotent  God  as  watching  over 
us;  but  an  omnipotent  God  would  not  necessarily  eliminate  evils  if  they 
were  not  repugnant  to  Him;  in  that  case  we  cannot  hold  God  to  be 
supremely  benevolent.  And  yet  if  God  were  not  benevolent,  He  would 
cease  to  be  God.  So  we  must  conceive  of  God  as  supremely  good.  Why 
then  in  this  world  of  a  supremely  good  God  does  evil  exist  if  He  is  also 
omnipotent?  This  is  the  problem.  We  have  given  solutions  in  three 
main  sections  as  follows: 

(1)  Solution  by  affirming  absolute  omnipotence.     In  order  to  assert 
an  absolute  omnipotence  and  benevolence,  there  is  no  other  way  than 
to  ignore  the  intrinsic  reality  of  evils.     But  if  the  existence  of  evil  is 
proved  real,  omnipotence  cannot  be  asserted  in  the  absolute  sense, 
since  the  absolutely  powerful  God  must  be  able  to  eliminate  any  evil  at 
once,   if  it  is  repugnant  to  his  benevolence. 

(2)  Solution    by    affirming    modified    omnipotence.     Accordingly, 
current  theology  does  not  suppose  the  divine  omnipotence  to  be  so 
absolute  that  God  can  do  anything  whatever.     God  acts  in  limited 
ways  according  to  his  moral  and  rational  nature.     God  can  use,  it  is 
said,  evils  as  instruments  either  for  retributive,  reformatory,  disciplinary 
or  educational  purposes.    This  is  an  ethical  use  of  evils.    Again,  a  moral 
system  requires  suffering  and  sorrow;  God  cannot  dispense  with  evil 
because  it  is  implicit  in  the  very  nature  of  moral  existence.     Nor  is  it 
logical,  they  say,  to  eliminate  pain  while  permitting  pleasure,  to  dispense 


60  OMNIPOTENCE   IN   CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

with  sorrow  while  blessing  with  joy,  since  the  existence  of  one  is  corollary 
to  the  other.  Life  involves  a  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  right 
and  wrong,  and  choice  of  one  or  the  other,  or  else  life  would  be  a  blank 
paper.  God  who  could  not  avoid  what  is  incidental  to  life  should  not 
be  charged  against  his  omnipotence,  because  omnipotence,  ex  hypothesi, 
does  not  mean  ability  to  do  the  impossible.  Such  is  the  main  contention 
of  those  who  affirm  modified  omnipotence. 

(3)  Solution  by  denying  omnipotence.  The  same  "incidental" 
theory,  however,  which  is  used  for  the  defense  of  omnipotence  is  here 
made  to  defeat  God's  almightiness  by  some  of  those  who  deny  the  divine 
omnipotence.  The  very  fact,  they  say,  that  God  as  absolute  creator 
has  made  life  which  involves  its  evils  such  as  sorrow  and  suffering, 
disease  and  death,  shows  that  His  power  is  limited  by  His  own  nature 
which  cannot  be  so  perfect  as  it  is  supposed,  since  it  is  imperfectly  and 
defectively  manifested  hi  his  creative  work.  Another  solution  of  the 
problem  is  advanced  by  a  skilful  writer,  saying  that  God  might  have 
been  able  to  foresee  and  eliminate  all  evils  and  maladjustments  but 
for  the  intrusion  of  a  foreign  power  which  has  disturbed  the  omnipotent 
rule  of  the  beneficient  God. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  MORAL  EVIL  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 
Problem 

The  problem  of  evil  owes  its  gravity  to  the  non-human  origin  of  a 
great  many  physical  ills,  while  the  problem  of  sin  is  generally  easily 
disposed  of  by  theologians,  since  sin  is  thought  to  be  due  to  human  free 
will  and  God  is  not  responsible  for  it.  But,  nevertheless,  why  is  God  not 
indirectly  responsible  for  sin,  since  He  gave  men  the  freedom  which 
led  them  to  sin?  This  problem  cannot  be  fully  comprehended  until  we 
discuss  the  problem  of  freedom  in  the  next  chapter.  Here  we  wish  to 
show  that  the  problem  of  sin  gives  us  a  sharper  sense  of  suffering  than 
physical  evil,  and  hence  intensifies  the  problem  discussed  in  the  preceding 
chapter. 

How,  asks  Hodge,  can  the  existence  of  physical  and  moral  evil  be 
reconciled  with  the  benevolence  and  holiness  of  a  God  infinite  in  his 
wisdom  and  power?  Even  if  pain  could  be  removed  from  the  category 
of  evil,  sin  is  not  so  easily  disposed  of.  "The  world  lies  in  wickedness. 
The  history  of  man  is,  to  a  large  degree,  the  history  of  sin.  If  God  be 
holy,  wise,  and  omnipotent,  how  can  we  account  for  this  widely  extended 
and  long-continued  prevalence  of  sin?  '?1  Clarke  in  his  later  work  presents 
the  problem  in  an  excellent  way. 

"The  world,"  says  he,  "is  a  world  of  sin.  The  world,  which  has  no  existence 
apart  from  God,  abounds  in  opposition  to  his  character  and  will.  That  which  he  hates 
is  done  by  beings  for  whose  existence  he  alone  is  responsible.  Instead  of  the  good 
and  harmonious  world  that  would  correspond  to  his  holy  love  and  power,  we  behold  a 
world  in  which  good  and  evil  exist  in  perpetual  struggle.  .  .  .  However  it  may  have 
come  to  pass,  evil  gets  possession  of  beings  whom  God  created  for  himself  and  only  a 
minor  part  of  them  does  he  appear  to  us  to  be  getting  back.  When  we  turn  from 
individuals  to  the  course  of  history,  we  find  that  the  human  career  shows  a  long  history 
of  right  and  wrong,  wrong  often  seeming  stronger  than  right,  sin  persisting,  and  evil 
rising  in  new  forms  after  defeat.  Evil  seems  far  easier  than  good  to  perpetrate  and 
increase.  The  scene  is  all  unlike  what  we  should  expect  if  the  one  good  God  were 
God  alone.  .  .  .  The  better  God  claimed  to  be,  the  deeper  becomes  the  mystery  of 
evil  in  his  world.  Can  we  believe  in  him  in  the  face  of  this?  And  if  we  think  of  men 
as  destined  to  live  beyond  the  present  life,  and  going  from  this  world  to  some  other 
with  their  evil  in  them,  the  field  of  the  problem  is  at  once  indefinitely  enlarged.  Out 
into  the  unexplored  spiritual  realm  it  extends,  where  it  seems  to  have  possession  of 
all  the  future.  .  .  .  We  may  perhaps  be  under  a  nightmare  of  facts  that  we  do  not 
rightly  understand.  But  if  so,  we  still  beg  to  be  told  why  God  made  such  a  nightmare 

1  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  430. 


62  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

possible,  and  in  any  case  we  cannot  deny  the  seriousness  of  the  problem.     The  fact  of 
evil  has  darkened  the  heaven  of  God  for  ages;  the  cloud  is  still  there."2 

This  problem  concerning  sin  in  relation  to  omnipotence  is  seriously 
recognized  by  most  theologians  and  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to  reiterate 
their  propositions.  First  we  may  ask:  is  sin  a  real  evil?  If  it  is  an 
illusion  due  to  a  finite  view  of  life,  is  the  existence  of  such  an  illusion 
not  derogatory  to  the  divine  goodness  or  power?  On  the  other  hand, 
if  sin  is  a  real  evil,  how  can  we  explain  its  presence  in  the  world  of  a 
good  God?  The  point  at  issue  is  this,  whether  sin  is  inevitable  in  a  moral 
system  of  free  persons.  If  not,  a  supremely  good  and  omnipotent  God 
ought  to  eliminate  sin  at  once  because  it  is  contrary  to  his  moral  per- 
fection. But  if  sin  is  inevitable,  may  God  be  regarded  as  an  omnipotent 
Being  in  the  modified  sense  which  precludes  the  ability  to  do  the  impos- 
sible? Or  is  the  inevitableness  of  sin  in  the  moral  world  to  be  taken  as 
God's  own  limitation  in  power,  if  we  do  not  wish  to  include  moral  evil 
in  the  divine  nature? 

Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem 

I.  Possible  Solution  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Absolute  Omnipo- 
tence. As  we  have  observed  in  case  of  physical  evil,  there  is  no  other 
way  than  to  deny  the  reality  of  sin  as  evil  if  we  assert  the  absolute 
omnipotence  and  supreme  goodness  of  God.  Since  absolute  idealism 
is  inclined  to  deny  the  reality  of  moral  evil  from  the  view  point  of  the 
whole,  we  will  again  cite  Royce  and  Bradley,  prominent  representatives 
of  current  absolutism.  They  do  not  of  course  ignore  the  reality  of 
moral  evil  in  practical  life,  but  tend  to  deny  it  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  totality  of  reality.  Sin  is  not  ignorance,  says  Royce,  but  a  moral 
delinquency,  a  wilful  forgetting  of  duty,  and  as  such  sin  is  a  real  evil 
in  the  finite  life.3  But  evil  is  a  finite,  imperfect  reality,  that  is,  not  true 
reality.  As  an  evil,  sin  cannot  exist  in  isolation.  "Its  supplement 
appears  in  the  form  of  deeds  of  atonement,  reparation,  control,  condemna- 
tion, and  in  the  end,  fulfilment."4  All  finite  life,  Royce  maintains,  is 
a  struggle  with  evil,  yet  from  the  final  point  of  view  the  Whole  is  good. 
"We  have  all  sinned,  and  come  short  of  the  glory  of  God.  Yet  in  just 
our  life,  viewed  in  its  entirety,  the  glory  of  God  is  completely  perfect.  "6 

Bradley  goes  more  thoroughly  into  absolutistic  tenets  and  says,  "  We 
suffer  within  ourselves  a  contest  of  the  good  and  bad  wills  and  a  certainty 
of  evil.  .  .  .  This  discord  is  necessary,  since  without  it  morality  must 

2  Clarke,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,  pp.  434  ff. 

3  Royce,   The  World  and  the  Individual,  II,  359. 
*Ibid.,  II,  371. 

•/&«*.,   II,   379. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  63 

wholly  perish.  .  .  .  Moral  evil  exists  only  in  moral  experience,  and 
that  experience  in  its  essence  is  full  of  inconsistency.  For  morality 
desires  unconsciously,  with  the  suppression  of  evil,  to  become  wholly 
non-moral."6  The  perfect  Being,  our  moral  Ideal,  is  a  non-moral  or 
supermoral  Being,  as  Bradley  says  that  morality  itself  labors  essentially 
to  pass  into  a  supermoral  and  therefore  a  non-moral  sphere ;  yet  he  main- 
tains that  his  Absolute  is  full  of  moral  distinctions  richer  than  ours.7 
But  how  is  that  mystery,  the  same  as  Royce's,  possible?  We  finite  beings 
must  simply  confess  our  ignorance.  At  all  events,  if  we  could  deny  the 
reality  of  moral  evil  in  the  absolutist  hypothesis  as  it  apparently  tends 
to  ignore  it  from  the  view  point  of  the  Whole,  the  reality  of  sin  as  illusion 
of  a  finite  view  cannot  be  conjured  away.  And  if  God  is  perfectly  good 
and  omnipotent,  he  must  be  able  to  eliminate,  as  James  and  McTaggart 
insist,8  even  such  an  illusion  or  one-sided  view.  So  we  cannot  assert 
divine  omnipotence  in  the  absolute  sense.  But  as  we  have  seen  that 
modern  theologians  do  not  assert  absolute  omnipotence,  let  us  show 
their  explanation  of  the  existence  of  sin  on  their  hypothesis  of  modified 
omnipotence. 

II.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Modified  Omnipotence. 
Since  sin  is  a  reality,  at  least  a  moral  reality,  the  definition  of  its  nature 
has  intimate  connection  with  the  solution  of  the  problem  before  us. 
We  therefore  must  refer  to  a  typical  conception  of  sin  as  stated  by 
theologians.  Theologians  generally  find  the  essential  principle  of  sin  in 
selfishness.9  Sin,  says  Clarke,  is  the  placing  of  self-will  or  selfishness 
above  the  claim  of  love  and  duty,10  and  in  its  relation  to  the  moral  govern- 
ment of  God,  it  is  "assertion  and  choice  of  what  is  diametrically  opposed 
to  the  character  and  will  of  God."11  With  this  conception  of  sin  as 
the  selfishness  of  the  creature  which  opposes  him  to  the  character  of 
God,  let  us  proceed  to  a  discussion  of  the  solutions  of  the  problem. 

1.  Solution  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  a  Quasi  Absolute  Omni- 
potence. Those  who  affirm  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  consider  that 
sin  is  permitted  by  God  and  embraced  in  the  divine  plan  of  redemption. 

The  Scripture  teaches,  says  Hodge,  that  "the  glory  of  God  is  the  end  to  which 
the  promotion  of  holiness,  and  the  production  of  happiness,  and  all  other  ends  are 
subordinate.  Therefore,  the  self-manifestation  of  God,  the  revelation  of  his  infinite 

6  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  201  ff. 

7  Ibid.,  204. 

8  Vide  Chpt.  IV. 

9  Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  567,  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  II,  194. 

10  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  235. 

11  Ibid.,  237. 


64  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

perfection,  being  the  highest  conceivable,  or  possible  good,  is  the  ultimate  end  of  all 
his  works  in  creation,  providence,  and  redemption.  As  sentient  creatures  are  necessary 
for  the  manifestation  of  God's  benevolence,  so  there  could  be  no  manifestation  of 
his  mercy  without  misery,  or  of  his  grace  and  justice,  if  there  were  no  sin."12 
Thus  man  is  a  mere  means  for  the  glory  of  the  divine  perfection,  and  his 
sin  is  also  to  contribute  its  quota  to  the  glory  of  God  through  the  divine 
plan  of  redemption.  But  can  we  escape  the  objection  that  it  is  incon- 
sistent with  the  holiness  of  God  that  He  should  foreordain  or  permit 
sin  for  his  own  glory?  Shedd  contends  that  the  permissive  decree  of 
sin  should  not  be  confounded  with  the  authorship  of  sin.  We  cannot 
infer,  says  he,  that  because  it  is  the  duty  of  a  man  to  keep  his  fellow 
man  from  sinning,  if  he  can,  it  is  also  the  duty  of  God  to  keep  man 
from  sinning.  "The  criminal  cannot  say  that  'you  are  to  blame  for 
this  crime,  because  you  did  not  prevent  me  from  perpetrating  it.'  Non- 
prevention  of  crime  is  not  the  authorship  of  crime."13  The  analogy  is 
well  taken,  but  when  a  man  had  actual  power  to  prevent  the  crime  of 
another  and  yet  did  not  do  it,  he  can  of  course  escape  the  charge  of  the 
"authorship"  of  the  crime,  but  a  moral  responsibility  for  not  preventing 
the  evil  which  was  in  his  power  to  avert,  he  can  not  escape.  The  same 
would  be  far  more  true  in  the  case  of  God  who  is  supposed  to  be  the 
absolute  author  of  all  things.  Yet  God  is  not  regarded  as  responsible 
for  the  non-prevention  or  permission  of  sin.  "We  maintain,"  says 
Strong,  "that  God  does  decree  sin  in  the  sense  of  embracing  in  his 
plan  the  foreseen  transgressions  of  men,  while  at  the  same  time  we 
maintain  that  these  foreseen  transgressions  are  chargeable  wholly  to 
men  and  not  at  all  to  God."14 

Sin  is  thus  embraced  in  the  divine  decree,  but  God  is  not  the  direct 
author  of  sin.  The  free  choice  of  man  called  sin  into  existence,  but 
freedom  alone  cannot  explain  it;  for  if  it  could,  it  would  defeat  the  divine 
omnipotence  by  acting  differently  from  the  eternal  decree  in  case  that 
the  divine  plan  had  not  embraced  sin.  God  foreknew  man's  sin  and 
the  fall  as  it  was  planned  in  the  cosmic  Drama  of  Redemption.  God  can 
be  called  an  indirect  author  of  sin,  although  man  is  directly  and  supposed 
to  be  solely  responsible  for  the  fact.  Hence  the  penalty  inflicted  upon 
the  misconduct  of  man  is  not  reformatory  but  retributive,  supposed 
to  do  more  justice  to  the  divine  glory.15  Besides,  wicked  sinners  are 

12  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  I,  435. 
"Shedd,   Dogmatic   Theology,   Vol.   I,   410. 
14  Strong,  op.  cit.,  354. 

18  See  the  purpose  of  divine  penalty  in  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Vol*  I,  417,  and  Strong 
op.  cit.,  653. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  65 

consigned  to  endless  punishment  and  not  to  annihilation  which  would 
rather  be  a  blessing,  say  they,  compared  with  eternal  hell  fire.16  And  this 
also  is  said  to  contribute  something  more  to  the  divine  glory,  the  purpose 
of  creation.  God  made  the  plan;  man  through  the  exercise  of  his  gift 
(freedom)  fell;  God  sends  him  a  saviour,  or  dooms  him  to  hell.  This 
solution  may  perhaps  be  sufficient  to  establish  the  divine  omnipotence 
in  the  quasi  absolute  sense,  if  it  can  assure  us  that  God  had  many  other 
ways  to  glorify  himself  than  to  let  men  be  free  to  sin  and  save  them 
afterwards  yet  He  chose  this.  But  this  assertion  of  omnipotence  is 
far  from  safeguarding  the  divine  benevolence  which  is  also  to  be  supreme. 
If,  however,  we  say  that  God  had  no  other  way  to  glorify  himself  than 
to  create  men  with  freedom  and  let  them  sin  in  order  to  save  them 
afterwards,  can  we  still  call  him  almighty  even  in  the  quasi  absolute 
sense?  Here  is  the  dilemma:  the  more  power  to  God,  the  less  bene- 
volence, since  God  then  becomes  the  more  responsible  for  sin.  An 
attempt  to  escape  from  this  dilemma  we  shall  see  in  the  following  solu- 
tions. 

2.  Solutions  by  Affirming  a  More  Modified  Omnipotence.  Since 
the  so-called  Scriptural  solution  is  felt  to  be  unsatisfactory  and  repugnant 
to  our  moral  sense,  more  recent  theologians  seek  different  solutions. 
There  are  roughly  speaking  three  different  theories  offered  by  those 
who  affirm  the  "deterministic"  and  the  "creative"  omnipotence,  namely, 
(1)  the  moral  system  or  freedom  theory,  represented  by  Harris  and 
and  Sheldon,  (2)  the  educational  theory,  by  Brown,  (3)  the  evolutionary 
or  incidental  theory,  by  Clarke  and  Ward,  which  combines  the  above  two 
besides  other  elements. 

(1)  Moral  System  or  Freedom  Theory.  This  theory  attributes  the 
origin  of  sin  to  human  freedom  or  free  choice  of  the  will.17  Sin  is  not  in 
the  divine  plan  as  an  actuality,  nor  is  it  for  the  training  of  human  per- 
sonality. But  God  could  not  create  a  moral  system  in  which  there  is 
no  possibility  for  sin.  As  the  definition  of  the  modified  omnipotence 
asserts,  an  omnipotent  God  need  not  be  able  to  do  what  is  impossible 
by  the  nature  of  things. 

"If  a  moral  system  exists,"  says  Harris,  "it  must  consist  of  finite,  and  therefore 
fallible  persons;  each  person  must  be  progressive,  adapted  to  the  character,  attainments 
and  development  of  the  finite  persons.  The  possibility  of  sin  and  the  liability  to 
commit  it  are  therefore  inseparable  from  a  moral  system.  Here,  however,  observe  it 
is  conceivable  that  all  rational  persons  in  forming  character  may  always  choose  right. 
But  the  possibility  of  sinning,  and  the  consequent  liability  to  sin  in  finite  persons  are 

16  Hodge,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  Ill,  879  ff.,  and  Strong,  op.  cit.,  1035-1052. 

17  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  p.  310. 


66  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

inseparable  from  the  moral  system.  Almighty  power  cannot  create  a  moral  system 
of  rational  persons,  each  of  whom  develop  himself  and  form  and  confirm  a  character 
by  his  own  free  action,  without  the  possibility  of  thir  sinning  and  their  consequent 
liability  to  sin.  ...  It  is  impossible  for  God  by  an  act  of  almighty  power  to  deter- 
mine the  free  choice  of  a  rational  free  agent.  It  is  no  more  possible  for  God  by  resist- 
less almighty  force  to  determine  a  man's  free  self-determination  than  it  is  possible 
for  him  to  create  a  circle  with  the  radii  unequal."18 

According  to  this  theory  a  moral  system  involves  freedom  and 
freedom  the  possibility  of  sinning.  If  God  were  to  create  man  with 
freedom  but  not  free  to  sin  he  would  be  violating  the  law  of  contradic- 
tion. And  if  God  cannot  do  the  illogical  his  power  is  not  limited  thereby 
because  it  is  impossible  by  the  nature  of  things.  But  does  it  not  involve 
a  question  of  divine  benevolence  if  God  had  created  a  free  agent  whom 
He  has  to  condemn  when  he  go  astray?  Harris  vindicates  God  for  his 
merciful  attitude  toward  sinners,  saying: 

"He  forsakes  no  sinner  until  he  sees  that  the  sinner  has  by  his  own  action  so  con- 
firmed and  fixed  his  evil  character  as  to  be  beyond  the  reach  of  moral  influence  to 
turn  him  back  to  the  life  of  faith  and  love.  Then  as  incorrigible,  and  only  then, 
sinners  are  abandoned  to  themselves.  They  are  left  to  gratify  their  own  sinful  desires 
and  to  follow  their  own  sinful  determinations.  The  evil  which  they  suffer  is  the 
corruption  and  perversion  of  their  own  being.  The  final  sentence,  Depart,  is  only 
the  declaration  of  the  final  and  unchangeable  separation  from  God."19 

As  to  the  divine  disposal  of  sinners  Sheldon  says  that  a  philosophical 
justification  of  an  irrepeatable  sentence  against  a  man  (incorrigibly 
wicked)  is  found  solely  in  the  possibility  of  moral  suicide  or  the  extinction 
of  spiritual  capacity  by  continued  perversity.20  Sheldon  is  inclined  to 
prefer  it  to  the  theory  of  eternal  suffering  which  is  more  repugnant  than 
annihilation  to  the  modern  sense  of  punitive  justice.  Still  the  question 
remains  that  it  is  so  far  a  defeat  of  God's  creative  aim  if  he  is  to  destroy 
a  created  being  on  account  of  the  misuse  of  his  gift  well-meant. 

Our  ultimate  doubt  seems  valid  against  Harris,  that  the  existence  of 
sin  absolutely  foreign  to  the  divine  nature  yet  created  by  finite  man,  a 
second  cause  as  a  free  agent,  would  involve  God  as  the  ultimate  ground 
of  sin,  or  else  God  through  a  second  cause  has  indirectly  created  a  being 
independent  of  God  if  it  can  eternally  persist  in  sin.  In  criticism  of 
the  freedom  theory  Brown  says  that  it  makes  a  man  mightier  than  God, 
since  in  a  single  instant  of  time  he  has  been  able  to  accomplish,  through 
his  free  choice,  what  all  the  centuries  of  divine  activity  have  been  unable 
to  undo.21 

"Harris,  God  the  Creator  and  Lord  of  All,  Vol.  I,  231  ff. 

19  Ibid.,  Vol.   I,   575. 

"Sheldon,  op.  ciL,  575. 

21  Brown,  Christian    Theology    in    Outline,    275. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  67 

(2)  Educational  Theory.  This  theory,  which  is  repudiated  by  all 
the  authors  mentioned  in  the  foregoing  two  solutions  of  the  problem 
is  taken  up  by  Brown  and  is  generally  accepted  by  Clarke  in  his  earlier 
work,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology.  Brown  applying  the  principle 
of  education  to  the  problem  of  moral  evil  maintains  that  it  has  a  neces- 
sary part  to  play  in  the  unfolding  of  the  divine  plan;  not  only  the  possi- 
bility of  sin  but  sin  itself  is  an  indispensable  element  in  the  world's  moral 
training. 

Through  sin,  says  he,  "there  has  been  brought  about  a  closer  communion  with 
God  and  a  higher  type  of  character  in  man  than  could  have  been  attained  in  any 
other  way.  .  .  .  We  cannot  think  it  away  from  the  world  without  at  the  same  time 
thinking  away  with  it  that  which  we  recognize  as  supremely  precious.  It  is  through 
sin,  with  its  consequences  in  our  own  lives  and  in  the  lives  of  those  we  love,  that  we 
learn,  as  we  could  learn  it  in  no  other  way,  our  need  of  God,  our  constant  dependence 
upon  him  for  salvation  and  strength.  It  is  through  sin,  with  its  deadly  havoc  in  the 
world,  making  appeal  to  the  finest  sympathy  and  the  most  complete  devotion,  that 
we  learn  the  meaning  of  Christian  service.  ...  So  far  from  being  the  proof  of  a 
world  which  is  undivine,  it  is  the  means  by  which  God  is  teaching  us  his  profoundest 
lessons,  and  fitting  us  for  communion  with  himself.  .  .  .  The  Christian  experience 
makes  it  possible  to  believe  that  all  evil  may  serve  a  good  end;  but  it  does  not  of  itself 
prove  it.  This  proof  remains  for  the  future  in  the  hope  of  immortality."22 

The  solution  given  by  Clarke  in  his  earlier  work  is  a  mixture  of  the 
freedom  and  educational  theories.  The  gift  of  freedom,  says  Clarke, 
implies  the  possibility  of  sin  — the  power  of  self-ruin  as  well  as  of  per- 
fection in  moral  life. 

"Thus  God  could  not  create,  man  in  his  own  likeness  without  putting  into  his 
hands  the  power  of  introducing  evil.  And  God  must  have  known  that  what  came  would 
come.  If  God  thus  knew  that  sin  would  come,  it  is  incredible  that  sin  formed  no 
element  in  his  plan.  If  he  framed  his  creation  of  man  so  that  it  would  come  in,  he 
must  have  had  a  purpose  that  included  it,  and  he  must  have  intended  in  some  way  to 
make  it  serve  his  own  worthy  end," — an  end  that  included  "the  presence  of  moral 
evil  and  the  turning  of  it  to  his  own  good  use — the  production  of  strong  and  virtuous 
souls."23  "It  is,"  Clarke  adds,  "in  the  universe  of  such  a  God  that  sin  is  at  work, 
and  he  is  at  work  against  it.  If  he  does  not  banish  moral  evil  from  his  universe  by 
winning  all  souls  to  holiness,  it  will  be  because  spirits  that  he  has  endowed  with  the 
amazing  gift  of  freedom  persist  in  evil  to  their  own  ruin,  though  he  seeks  to  save 
them."24 

Thus  it  is  argued  that  God  is  using  sin  for  educational  purposes  and 
that  sin  justifies  God  because  it  has  its  place  in  the  universe  of  a  good 
God  as  a  means,  not  for  the  glory  of  God  primarily,  but  for  the  necessary 
training  of  human  personality.  Certain  pertinent  questions,  however, 
suggested  by  those  who  have  refuted  this  theory  still  remain  unsolved. 

22  Brown,  op.  «'/.,  207-210. 

28  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.   156. 

ulbid.,   p.    158. 


68  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

Harris  considers  that  the  educational  theory  makes  sin  a  necessary 
means  for  moral  training,  but  the  theory  is  unsatisfactory  because  sin 
ceases  to  be  real  evil  if  it  is  useful  to  a  moral  system25  and  Sheldon  objects 
that  it  "puts  God  in  the  odious  light  of  taking  evil  into  His  plan  for  the 
sake  of  good,  whereas  the  ordinary  ethical  code  of  men  condemns  those 
who  do  evil  that  good  may  come.  "26  Moreover,  if  God  could  create 
in  the  course  of  human  history  a  perfect  manhood  in  Jesus  without  a 
horrible  experience  of  sinning,  as  Brown27  and  many  other  theologians 
believe,  why  could  He  not  educate  every  man  without  involving  dead- 
ening evils?  Furthermore,  a  God,  who,  being  himself  a  perfectly  moral 
person  and  the  absolute  author  of  the  universe,  could  not  create  perfectly 
moral  beings  without  educational  means  of  evils,  seems  not  omnipotent 
even  in  a  modified  sense. 

(3)  Evolutionary  Theory  or  Sin  as  Contingent  to  Life  Process.  The 
most  plausible  solution  of  the  problem  of  sin  on  the  hypothesis  of  modi- 
fied omnipotence  is  that  held  by  Ward  and  by  Clarke  in  his  later  work, 
The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God.  Sin  is  now  regarded  to  be  incidental 
to  the  life  process  in  which  many  persons  are  working  with  a  certain 
amount  of  initiative  for  each  individual.  God  is  also  responsible  for 
the  existence  of  sin,  but  he  is  utilizing  it  for  good  purposes  and  therefore 
God  is  justifiable  as  omnipotent  as  well  as  supremely  good.  We  will 
divide  the  discussion  into  three  topics  as  follows: 

(a)  Men  as  Co- Workers  with  God  in  Evolution.  Ward  gives  his 
solution  of  the  problem  of  sin  along  with  a  discussion  of  the  evolution 
of  moral  sense  in  humanity,  and  asserts  that  sin  is  contingent  to  life 
in  a  moral  system.  In  the  universe  in  which  many  selves  are  acting  and 
interacting,  the  rise  of  sin  is  inevitable.  He  considers  moral  evil  to  be 
essentially  selfishness  as  theologians  do,  yet  selfishness  has  its  roots  in 
that  instinct  of  self-preservation,  which  is  called  the  first  law  of  nature. 
How  then  does  what  is  thus  rooted  in  right  nevertheless  become  wrong? 
To  love  himself  a  man  must  know  himself,  but  he  can  know  himself 
only  through  knowing  other  selves;  neither  self-love  nor  selfishness  then 
is  possible  below  the  social  level.  A  man  in  his  social  intercourse  dis- 
covers himself  with  diverse  desires  and  motives  for  action  which  are 
often  in  conflict  with  those  of  other  men.  Mutual  approval  or  disappro- 
val of  certain  deeds  leads  him  to  the  recognition  of  a  moral  standard  by 
which  he  judges  his  subsequent  action  as  right  or  wrong,  egoistic  or  al- 

25  Harris,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  238-240. 

28  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  pp.  308-310,  also  Harris,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I, 
233-237. 

27  Brown,  op.  cit.,  pp.  323-351. 


ONMIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  69 

truistic.  Such  distinction  of  right  and  wrong  is  inevitable  in  the  evolving 
world  of  many.  Now  having  acquired  a  moral  standard  of  right  and 
wrong,  and  conscience  that  approves  or  disapproves  certain  acts,  why 
does  a  man  not  always  follow  the  right  direction  but  is  often  tempted  to 
opposite  ways?  Ward  contends  that  such  temptation  and  the  power  of 
free  choice  are  the  very  thing  that  makes  possible  the  evolution  of  moral 
life  to  an  ever  higher  level.28  Ward  here  cites  Huxley's  objection  to 
this  theory.  "  I  protest, "  says  Huxley,  "  that  if  some  great  Power  would 
agree  to  make  me  think  always  what  is  true  and  do  what  is  right  on 
condition  of  being  turned  into  a  sort  of  clock,  I  should  instantly  close 
with  the  bargain.  The  only  freedom  I  care  about  is  the  freedom  to  do 
right;  the  freedom  to  do  wrong  I  am  ready  to  part  with  on  the  cheapest 
terms."  But  freedom  and  clockwork,  replies  Ward,  absolute  routine 
and  yet  continuous  progress  in  self-knowledge  and  self-control — these 
are  flagrant  contradictions.  The  contingency  of  evil  in  the  world  cannot 
be  construed  into  a  sign  of  moral  imperfection  in  its  constitution;  such 
contingency  is  inseparable  from  any  creation  that  is  evolutionary  in 
such  wise  as  to  leave  free  agents  more  or  less  initiative.29  God's  world 
indeed  contains  moral  evil,  "not  because  of  any  necessitation  on  His 
part  but  because  of  the  free  acts  of  us,  who  are  joint-workers  with  him 
in  the  world's  evolution."30 

(b)  Joint  Responsibility  of  God  and  Man  for  the  Existence  of  Sin. 
The  conception  of  men  as  co-workers  with  God  calls  for  the  question  of 
the  responsibility  for  the  existence  of  sin.  Ward  ascribes  it  wholly  to 
men,31  while  Clarke  brings  out  a  clear  reference  to  the  joint-responsibility 
of  God  and  men  by  his  conception  of  a  fourfold  responsibility.  Virtue  and 
sin,  says  Clarke,  are  natural  growths  in  the  field  of  the  life  of  humanity. 
If  there  is  a  good  God  over  all,  he  is  a  good  God  who  has  himself  produced 
a  world  of  mingled  good  and  evil.  It  has  been  shown  how  naturally 
the  moral  element  came  into  the  human  Jot.  Sensation  belongs  to  the 
nature  of  life,  judgment  between  sensations  makes  life  rational,  and 
choice  among  judgments  and  sensations  makes  life  moral.  Morality 
comes  as  soon  as  men  begin  to  choose,  and  consequently  to  act,  either 
with  or  against  the  worthier  appeal.  Responsibility  comes  when  the 
choice  or  act  is  intelligent  enough  to  be  one's  own.  It  is  by  a  perfectly 
natural  movement  that  life  has  moved  on  through  these  successive  stages. 

28  Ward,   The  Realm  of  Ends,  pp.  364-372. 
"Ibid.,  379. 

30  Ibid.,  382. 

31  Ibid.,  439. 


70  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

Man  having  emerged  into  a  moral  world  through  such  process  cannot 
avoid  the  mingled  state  of  good  and  evil,  as  he  is  still  constantly  struggling 
for  higher  spiritual  life  amidst  his  animal  and  social  inheritances  ever  pull- 
ing backward.32  Now  the  locus  of  responsibility  for  the  existence  of  sin  is 
clear.  For  the  great  world  order,  in  which  good  and  evil  have  come 
into  existence  according  to  natural  process,  God  is  responsible.  For 
the  accumulated  inheritance  of  good  and  evil  which  any  given  individual 
received  in  his  personal  constitution,  the  human  race  is  responsible. 
For  the  acts  and  choices  that  make  or  mar  the  character  and  destiny  of 
the  man,  the  individual  himself  is  responsible.  And  for  the  innumer- 
able influences  that  affect  the  individual,  and  help  to  make  his  character 
and  conduct  right  or  wrong,  the  responsibility  is  distributed  among  the 
many  persons,  past  and  present,  who  have  done  good  and  evil  in  the 
world.  Thus  among  God,  humanity,  himself,  and  his  various  fellows 
is  divided  the  responsibility  of  any  man's  moral  condition  and  conduct.33 

(c)  The  Significance  of  Moral  Evil.  The  attribution  of  responsibili- 
ty to  God  for  the  existence  of  moral  evil  seems  to  constitute  an  indictment 
of  either  the  divine  goodness  or  power.  But  Clarke  vindicates  God 
by  his  account  of  the  significance  of  sin.  Sin  is  an  anomaly,  says  Clarke, 
produced  by  the  normal  action  of  such  a  being  as  man.  But  why  is  an 
abnormal  element  wrought  into  the  system  of  God?  The  soul  in 
humanity,  Clarke  observes,  was  not  born  into  peace  but  into  moral 
conflict.  It  was  an  inward  conflict  between  the  past  and  the  future, 
between  what  was  and  what  ought  to  be,  between  what  should  be  aban- 
doned and  what  should  be  attained.  The  conflict  was  within,  at  the 
seat  of  the  will.  "The  battle  must  be  fought  out  by  his  willing  and 
acting  now  in  one  way  and  now  in  the  other,  living  his  divided  life,  learning 
by  experience,  and  coming  to  unity  after  being  first  divided  against  him- 
self. "34  But  our  question  is:  Can  the  good  God  have  created  such  a 
life?  For  life  itself  contained  the  secret  of  such  a  moral  conflict.  Clarke's 
answer  is  that  God  was  right  in  creating  life,  even  though  its  unfolding 
brought  the  evil  with  the  good. 

"At  the  element  of  training,"  says  he,  "through  moral  conflict  which  we  find 
in  life  we  need  not  be  offended,  for  we  know  of  no  other  way  in  which  character  was 
to  be  formed  and  the  right  destiny  of  the  soul  attained.  Perhaps  we  cannot  declare 
it  to  be  the  only  way,  for  perhaps  we  do  not  know;  but  we  can  say  that  it  certainly 
corresponds  to  human  nature.  We  at  least  have  seen  no  other  method  of  attaining 
to  confirmed  high  character.  Moral  education  must  be  inward  through  experience. 

32  Clarke,  The  Christian  Doctrine  of  God,  pp.  450-453. 

33  Ibid.,  p.  454. 

34  Ibid.,  p.  457. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  71 

Ultimate  character,  whether  good  or  bad,  implies  an  inward  victory  over  the  opposite. 
Character  untested  is  insecure.  In  men,  settled  moral  character  seems  to  imply  per- 
sonal knowledge  of  good  and  evil:  not  of  all  possible  good  and  evil,  of  course,  and 
not  of  some  specific  amount  or  intensity  of  strife,  but  such  acquaintance  and  such 
conflict  as  to  make  the  victory  secure  when  it  has  been  won."35 

Clarke  thus  justifies  the  existence  of  evil  as  a  necessity  of  life  in 
evolution.  Christianity  does  not  accept,  says  he,  the  dilemma  that  if 
God  is  love  he  is  not  almighty,  and  if  he  is  almighty,  he  is  not  love.  It 
believes  that  He  is  both.  "His  character  is  perfect  and  his  power  is 
adequate  to  his  character.  It  is  true  that  clouds  and  darkness  are 
round  about  him.  We  cannot  solve  the  questions  or  see  our  way  through 
the  perplexities,  but  that  does  not  alter  our  God."36  Such  is  the  con- 
clusion of  Clarke  on  the  problem.  With  all  its  ingenuity,  this  is  rather 
a  confession  of  impossibility  to  solve  the  problem  than  a  solution.  If 
God  is  in  part  responsible  for  the  existence  of  sin,  it  would  logically 
follow  that  he  is  either  not  all-good  or  not  almighty.  Yet  God  must  be 
believed,  says  Clarke,  to  be  both  almighty  and  all-loving  as  traditional 
faith  declares. 

3.  Summary.  Four  solutions  are  current  for  the  problem  of  sin  on 
the  hypothesis  of  modified  omnipotence,  namely,  (1)  So-called  Scrip- 
tural or  the  fall  theory,  (2)  Moral  system  or  freedom  theory,  (3)  Educa- 
tional theory  and  (4)  Evolutionary  or  the  incidental-to-life  theory. 
The  first  three  are  inconsistent  with  one  another,  while  the  fourth  com- 
bines the  second  and  the  third  in  its  support.  In  the  first  solution  the 
origin  of  sin  is  attributed  to  the  fall  which  was  embraced  in  the  divine 
plan.  This  gives  an  advantage  to  the  assertion  of  omnipotence,  but 
by  so  much  it  disparages  the  divine  goodness  by  including  sin  in  God's 
plan  of  the  universe.  The  second  solution  makes  human  freedom  solely 
responsible  for  the  genesis  of  sin  not  in  the  divine  plan.  The  divine 
goodness  is  thus  saved;  but  omnipotence  may  be  defeated  by  human 
freedom,  since  there  is  a  possibility  of  sin  which  God  cannot  restrain. 
The  third  theory  makes  sin  a  means  for  the  training  of  life;  its  advantage 
is  that  God  is  using  sin  for  the  future  good  and  therefore  he  is  vindicated. 
But  it  attenuates  the  evil  of  sin  to  define  it  as  a  means  for  a  good  end, 
and  at  the  same  time  it  raises  a  difficulty  with  omnipotence  if  God  has 
to  use  evil  means  for  good  ends.  The  fourth  theory  conceives  sin  to  be 
an  unavoidable  incident  to  evolving  life;  even  the  good  God  cannot 
eliminate  it  at  once.  Therefore  his  omnipotence  is  not  impaired,  if 
sin  is  unavoidable  to  the  development  of  life.  These  theories  after  all 

38  Clarke,  op.  cit.,  p.  460. 
"Ibid.,  p.  461. 


72  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

cannot  easily  be  harmonized  into  a  summary  because  all  the  subtle 
points  of  argument  lie  in  the  shades  of  meaning  in  the  content  which 
varies  with  different  authors  even  if  they  use  the  same  name.  Indeed, 
different  conclusions  may  be  reached  from  identical  premises.  Thus 
the  last  solution  of  the  problem  which  regards  sin  as  incidental  to  life  is 
asserted  to  preserve  the  divine  omnipotence  by  Clarke  and  Ward,  while 
by  others  such  as  Johnson  and  McTaggart  it  is  regarded  to  be  the  very 
proof  of  non-omnipotence.  We  shall,  then,  close  this  chapter  with  an 
account  of  non-omnipotence  hypotheses. 

III.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Denying  Omnipotence.  1.  Evolu- 
tionary Theory.  Johnson,  as  already  said,  takes  a  position  similar  to 
Ward's  in  explanation  of  sin  but  he  feels  more  comfort  in  denying  omni- 
potence than  in  affirming  it.  The  Creator's  character,  says  he,  is  ex- 
pressed to  us  in  those  qualities  which  are  manifested  by  his  creatures. 
If  creatures  are  not  perfectly  efficient,  the  fact  reflects  a  defect  in 
the  Creator. 

"God  be  praised,"  says  he,  "because  we  see  in  Him  the  reflection  and  source 
of  whatever  things  are  pure,  lovely,  morally  and  physically  beautiful,  and  because  we 
trace  back  to  Him  as  their  author,  all  such  qualities  as  justice,  mercy,  truth,  and 
love.  .  .  .  while  He  has  made  justice  and  mercy,  loyalty,  and  unselfish  love  adorable, 
has  He  not  also  made  them  most  difficult,  permitting  their  opposites  so  to  root  them- 
selves in  our  nature  and  so  dominate  us  with  their  insistance  that  our  vital  energy 
is  often  given  to  them  even  while  our  respect  and  reverence  go  out  toward  their  rivals? 
.  .  .  But  it  is  only  through  the  antagonisms  of  good  and  evil  in  the  moral  conscious- 
ness of  man  that  character  becomes  actual.  Without  the  presence  of  these  two  prin- 
ciples of  moral  light  and  darkness,  men  might  be  morally  sentient,  but  never  morally 
intelligent,  or  morally  efficient,  beings.  Through  their  conflicting  agency  morality 
emerges  from  the  realm  of  feeling  into  that  of  energizing,  overcoming,  creating."87 

Thus  the  rise  and  antagonism  of  two  principles,  good  and  evil,  are 
inevitable  in  the  course  of  moral  development,  and  God  who  could  not 
create  life  without  its  incidental  evil,  Johnson  reverentially  asserts, 
should  not  be  called  omnipotent,  since  the  divine  choice  of  creation 
was  limited  to  the  alternatives,  namely,  either  the  world  without  life 
or  the  world  with  life  and  its  incidental  evil.  Our  world  of  evolution, 
which  God  preferred,  cannot  avoid  the  mingled  presence  of  goods  and 
evils,  both  physical  and  moral,  in  the  upward  struggle  of  sentient  exis- 
tence. God  who  is  so  limited  that  he  cannot  but  admit  sin  in  his  universe 
if  he  is  to  create  at  all,  may  be  perfectly  benevolent  in  his  intents,  but 
as  he  has  to  struggle  against  the  evil  of  the  created  world,  it  is  better  not 
to  call  him  omnipotent  in  his  power.  In  a  word,  the  God  whom  Johnson 
holds  before  us  is  a  finite  God  "like  ourselves"  as  we  have  already  seen 

37  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  pp.  116-118. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  73 

in  our  chapter  on  evolution.  "Shorn  of  the  word  omnipotence, "  says  he, 
"the  idea  of  God  becomes  something  more  real,  more  intelligibly  wor- 
shipful and  infinitely  more  moral  and  loving,  inspiring."38 

2  Dualistic  Theory.  Another  solution  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  creative 
yet  non-omnipotent  God,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  preceding  chapter,  is 
that  of  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  who  introduces  a  Satanic  power 
to  explain  the  genesis  of  sin.  It  is  easier  to  believe,  says  he,  in  the 
beneficent  goodness  of  the  Creator  if  we  are  also  at  liberty  to  believe 
that  there  is  in  the  universe  some  other  power  thwarting  and  opposing 
that  beneficence,  and  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  much  of  the  difficulty 
that  men  experience  in  realizing  the  goodness  of  the  Creator  is  attribut- 
able to  the  abandonment  of  a  belief  in  Satan.39  So  he  rejects  all  other 
theories  explaining  the  cause  of  evils,  especially  such  theories  as  the  free 
will,  the  educationary,  the  evolutionary  theories.  He  asserts  that  there 
is  no  need  of  evil  as  the  contrast  to  good,  nor  sin  as  the  contrast  to  virtue. 
God  can  create  the  perfect  world  of  a  moral  system  which  does  not  re- 
quire any  incidental  evils  for  the  development  of  character.  Selfishness 
would  never  degrade  into  sin  in  the  benignant  reign  of  an  omnipotent 
God;  it  could  exist  in  perfect  harmony  with  love,  but  for  the  intrusion 
of  an  evil  Power!  In  order  to  prove  further  his  position  by  an  aid  of 
science,  he  first  attempts  to  describe  how  selfishness  without  deteriorating 
into  sin  could  exist  in  harmony  with  love  in  the  perfect  world  of  God. 
He  also  tells  us  that  the  variety  of  life  is  possible  without  mixture  of 
evil;  that  culture  is  possible  without  passing  through  primitivity  and 
war;  and  finally  that  effort  is  not  excluded  from  perfect  life.  All  these 
are  meant  to  prove  that  evil  is  not  necessary  nor  incidental  to  life,  if 
the  world  were  created  by  a  perfect  God.  Here  we  give  his  argument 
for  the  perfect  world. 

(1)  Harmony  of  Selfishness  and  Love  Possible  in  a  Perfect  World. 
Selfishness,  the  author  holds,  is  a  fundamental  law  of  life.  But  when 
the  unfolding  of  life  had  reached  the  point  at  which  evil  would  result  from 
the  unmodified  working  of  that  law  of  mere  selfishness,  some  other  law, 
such  as  the  law  of  love,  could  be  made  to  dominate  and  control  the  other 
principle  so  that  the  lower  instinct  of  selfishness  could  never  assert 
itself  to  produce  injury  or  unhappiness.40  Illustrating  the  point  with 
facts  about  a  bantam  cock  and  his  hen,  the  author  urges  that  all  observers 
of  nature  know  very  well  that  the  predominance  of  love  against  the  play 

88  Johnson,  op.  cit.,  p.  91. 
39  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  10. 
"Ibid.,  pp.   131  ff. 


74  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

of  selfishness  is  to  be  found  very  extensively  throughout  the  animal 
world  nor  can  it  be  set  down  as  a  mere  matter  of  sex.  "That  animals 
will  subordinate  their  own  appetites  and  interests  to  the  requirements 
of  their  young  of  course  everybody  knows,  but  it  is  by  no  means  confined 
even  to  such  relationships.  Individual  animals  are  often  capable  of 
conceiving  attachments  which  quite  override  their  innate  selfishness. 
Throughout  a  large  proportion  of  animal  life  upon  the  globe,  self-asser- 
tion and  its  opposite  are  so  nicely  balanced  that  life  is  peaceful,  harmon- 
ious, and  upon  the  whole,  happy.  Moreover,  it  is  a  fact  that  as  a  ruling 
principle  love  is  the  highest,  the  strongest,  the  best."  Evolutionists 
are  agreed,  he  adds,  that  it  is  just  the  fierce  struggle  of  created  things 
that  has  produced  birds  and  beasts  of  prey,  and  that  it  is  the  malignity 
of  the  struggle  that  has  produced  the  venom  of  so  many  reptiles;  a 
world  in  which  self-assertion  always  gave  place  to  benignant  good  will 
could  never  have  evolved  such  things  as  tigers  and  puff-adders.  But 
then  why  need  they  have  been  evolved?  His  contention  is  that  the 
Creator  could  never  have  designed  that  they  should  be.  "To  conceive 
that  a  beneficent  Creator  deliberately  intended  to  produce  myriads  of 
sentient  creatures  to  be  actuated  by  unmitigated  selfishness,  and  to 
go  on  for  untold  ages  'tearing  each  other  in  their  slime'  is  to  my  mind 
impossible."41  His  conclusion  is  that  there  must  have  been  some 
malignant  spirit,  a  devil,  who  brought  selfishness  into  predominance 
in  the  place  of  love  and  disturbed  a  perfect  adjustment  of  the  world 
made  by  the  beneficent  Creator. 

(2)  Variety  of  Life  Possible  Without  Evil.  As  to  the  wonderful 
variety  of  creatures  which  is  supposed  to  be  less  possible  if  there  were 
no  evil  ones,  the  author  asks  whether  it  might  not  have  been  equally 
varied,  curious,  and  interesting  in  other  ways  without  the  evil.  If  the 
bee  can  live  entirely  on  honey  and  seemingly  be  one  of  the  happiest  and 
cleverest  of  creatures,  is  there  in  the  nature  of  things  any  reason  why 
the  spider  might  not  have  lived  and  been  happy  without  murder  and 
treacherous  cunning?  Keep  a  swarm  of  spiders,  says  he,  in  a  narrow 
confine,  they  would  simply  devour  each  other  so  long  as  there  is  one  left 
to  attack  another.  The  character  of  the  spider  is  something  horrible. 
And,  the  author  asks,  was  this  ever  designed?  At  any  rate  he  asserts 
that  under  the  conditions  he  supposes,  much  of  the  lower  life  would 
have  been  different,  but  not  less  wonderful,  not  less  varied  and  admir- 
able.42 

41  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  138. 
*Ibid.,  p.   146. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  75 

(3)  Culture    Possible    Without    Primitivity    and    War.     Primitive 
stages  of  feud  and  warfare  are  often  supposed  to  be  a  necessary  medium 
through  which  man  passes  from  animalism  to  civilization.     The  author's 
contention  is  that  it  is  quite  unnecessary  in  a  world  created  by  an  omni- 
potent God  supremely  good.    No  doubt,  says  he,  that  warfare  has  itself 
produced  very  remarkable  characteristics  and  marvelous  faculties,  but 
how  many  faculties  has  it  stunted  and  destroyed? 

"In  the  human  world,  if  a  man  takes  a  predatory  habit  he  may  indeed  sharpen 
his  wits  and  cultivate  his  powers  of  cunning  and  deception,  but  he  is  spoiled  for  every 
honest  and  useful  purpose,  and  where  you  have  two  or  three  generations  of  men  of  this 
type  the  characteristics  of  the  thief  become  all  but  ineradicable.  In  such  a  case,  da 
you  say  that  these  characteristics  are  what  the  Creator  intended  for  the  man?  Of 
course  not.  ...  It  is  commonly  said  by  anthropologists  that  men  were  first  hunters, 
then  shepherds,  and  next  tillers  of  the  ground.  Through  all  three  stages  the  waging 
of  war  upon  each  other  has  certainly  been  a  main  factor  in  the  formation  of  character 
and  in  the  direction  of  industry.  Now  under  a  regime  of  perfect  benevolence  the 
entire  hunting  and  shepherding  periods  of  warfare  in  the  development  of  mankind 
would  have  been  altogether  eliminated.  The  human  race  would  have  made  direct 
for  peaceful  industry,  for  art,  and  science,  and  social  organization.  .  .  .  Through 
all  life  there  would  be  just  enough  of  the  salt  of  selfishness  to  impel  every  creature 
to  take  care  of  itself,  but  higher  and  stronger  than  this  would  be  that  universally 
diffused  benevolence  which,  in  taking  care  of  itself,  carefully  avoids  doing  injury  to 
another.  Why  then,  aggressiveness,  pugnacity,  hostility,  war,  carnivorous  propen- 
sity? .  .  .  Nature  is,  to  a  frightful  extent,  red  in  tooth  and  claw,  full  of  cruelty 
and  injustice,  pain  and  unhappiness;  and  the  Designer  of  it,  who,  if  He  is  omnipotent 
and  supreme,  might  have  obviated  it  all,  has  chosen  not  to  do  so.  Or  has  it  pleased 
Him  to  work  this  way,  and  we,  His  puny  puppets,  may  hope  and  trust  and  pray, 
but  we  must  suffer  and  struggle  and  die  to  work  out  His  awful  scheme  of 
things?  Why,  it  cannot  be!  There  is  some  other  power.  The  beneficent  working 
of  those  laws  has  been  disturbed,  and  the  Creator  is  striving,  and  successfully  striving, 
to  restore  the  balance  and  adjustment  of  things."43 

The  author  supposes  that  the  malignant  power  might  have  entered 
just  at  that  point,  where  in  the  slow  unfolding  of  life,  love  and  selfishness 
first  came  into  conflict.  Assume,  says  he,  that  just  there  a  malignant 
power  effected  a  disturbance  of  the  natural  laws  under  which  things 
were  unfolding,  and  you  have  a  theory  which  accounts  intelligibly  for 
every  phase  and  form  of  the  world's  moral  and  social  evil,  while  you 
leave  the  character  of  the  Creator  purely  benevolent.44 

(4)  Effort  not  Excluded  from  Perfect  Life.    Finally  we  come  to 
the  question  of  effort,  whether  it  is  possible  in  a  perfect  life  to  have  zest 
of  activity  without  any  evil  to  .conquer,  any  sin  to  subdue.    Effortless 
life  would  be  no  blessing.    The  author's  contention  is  that  the  perfect 
life  he  supposes  is  not  a  life  of  stagnation;  effort  there  must  be  for  further 

"Op.  cit.,  pp.  147-154. 
"Ibid.,  p.  158. 


76  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

development  of  life,  but  that  effort  will  never  be  perverted  into  evil  or 
sin,  if  life  is  created  by  a  perfect  God. 

"Here  is  the  perfect  life,"  he  supposes,  and  asks,  "what  sort  of  a  world  must  it 
be  that  is  entirely  adapted  to  it?  Must  it  be  a  world  of  all  sunbeams  and  Zephyrs — 
totally  without  anything  like  hardship  or  difficulty,  anything  calculated  to  tax  endu- 
rance and  stimulate  energy?  No;  such  a  world,  of  course,  would  be  totally  lacking 
just  that  which  gives  life  its  greatest  zest,  and  which  is  quite  essential  to  health  and 
happiness — something  difficult  to  achieve,  something  that  demands  effort,  something 
that  fills  the  mind  with  interest  and  gives  a  purpose  to  existence.  It  must  be  a  world 
full  of  variety,  sharp  contrasts,  exhaustless  interests,  affording  the  fullest  scope  for 
every  faculty  of  mind  and  body."45 

The  author's  point  is  that  hardship  and  effort  need  never  deteriorate 
into  evil  or  sin  in  a  perfect  scheme  of  things.  But  the  fact  that  our 
world  is  otherwise  must  be  explained  differently  than  by  traditional 
theodicy. 

"It  must  have  been,"  says  he,  "the  design  of  the  Creator  that  love  should  have 
been  universally  the  dominant  force,  and  this  would  have  been  a  law  as  universal  and 
invariable  as  the  law  of  gravitation.  The  rule  of  selfishness  would  always  have  asserted 
itself  as  a  strictly  subordinate  force.  The  manifest  truth  that  has  not  been  the  case 
is  to  be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  at  a  momentous  point  a  disturbing  influence  was 
exerted.  The  result  of  the  'maladjustment'  has  been  a  radical  change  in  the  nature 
of  much  of  the  life  subsequently  evolved.  It  seems  equally  clear  that  a  secondary 
result  would  be  a  radical  alteration  of  the  whole  organization  of  society.  "w 

(5)  The  Devil  as  Cause  of  Maladjustment.  Thus  the  author  of 
Evil  and  Evolution  advances  his  hypothesis  that  the  very  fount  of  all 
the  maladjustments  must  be  traced  back  to  a  Malignant  Spirit  with  stu- 
pendous creative  and  administrative  power.47  "The  simplest  and  most 
satisfactory  solution  of  that  riddle  of  all  ages  is  just  the  old  one — that  the 
Supreme  Ruler,  in  his  beneficent  activity  in  the  universe,  is  confronted  by 
another  power;  that  in  the  absolute,  literal  sense  of  the  word  God  is  not 
omnipotent;  that  He  is  engaged  in  a  conflict  which  to  a  certain  extent 
limits  his  power,  and  the  final  issue  of  which  can  be  wrought  out  only  in 
the  course  of  ages.  In  plain  terms,  there  is  a  God  and  there  is  a  devil,  and 
the  two  powers  are  in  conflict."48 

We  have  given  above  two  solutions  on  the  hypothesis  of  creative  yet 
non-omnipotent  God.  Mill  and  McTaggart  give  their  solution  of  the 
problem  of  sin  on  the  theory  of  non-creator  or  designer  God  without 
almightiness,  but  we  shall  defer  this  theory  till  a  concluding  chapter 
where  the  non-omnipotence  hypotheses  are  definitively  gathered  up 
in  order  to  give  a  unified  view. 

"Op.  tit.,  pp.  161-163. 
"Ibid.,  pp.  167 ff. 
47  Ibid.,  p.  91. 
"Ibid.,  p.  12. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  77 

Summary 

We  have  in  this  chapter  enumerated  seven  types  of  solutions  to  the 
problem  of  sin,  and  they  are  briefly  as  follows: 

(1)  Possible  Solution  by  affirming  Absolute  Omnipotence.     If  we 
want  to  assert  absolute  omnipotence,  there  is  no  other  way  than  to 
deny  the  intrinsic  reality  of  sin  and  treat  it  merely  as  an  illusion  due  to 
a  finite  view.    But  if  the  existence  of  such  an  illusion  itself  is  evil,  God 
must  be  responsible  for  it.    AnoVif  sin  as  such  is  real,  the  solution  of 
the  problem  is  impossible  on  6ie  hypothesis  of  absolute   omnipotence 
and  absolute  benevolence. 

(2)  Solutions    by    affirming  'Modified    Omnipotence.     Hence    the 
theologians  who  assert  omnipotence  with  some  modification,  attempt  to 
solve  the  problem  mainly  in  four  different  ways,  namely,  (a)  Scriptural 
theory — The  first  of  them  try  to  include  sin  in  the  divine  plan  which 
seeks  the  glory  of  God  himself,  since  man  is  simply  a  divine  means  to  an 
end.    They  picture  reverently  a  cosmic  drama  of  the  original  perfection, 
the  fall,  and  then  the  redemptive  dispensation.    This,  however,  is  to 
attribute  sin  to  the  divine  causation,  although  they  illogically  deny  it  to 
God,  and  ascribe  it  all  to  the  free  will  of  man.     (b)  Freedom  theory— 
Those  who  feel  the  inhumanity  of  the  above  theory  seek  their  solution  in 
the  freedom  of  man.     God  created  a  moral  system  in  which  the  possibil- 
ity of  sin  was  inevitable,  but  man  needed  not  fall  into  sin.     Hence  it 
can  scarcely  be  said  that  sin  was  in  the  divine  plan,  but,  as  it  exists,  sin 
is  solely  due  to  the  free  will  of  man.     (c)  Educational  theory — Those 
who  feel  the  difficulty  with  the  above  solution  which  makes  human 
freedom  bulk  so  large  as  almost  to  defeat  the  divine  power  of  control, 
suppose  that  sin  is  somehow  embraced  in  the  divine  plan  but  only  for 
the  good  of  the  creatures,  namely,  for  training  of  their  character.     God 
cannot  perhaps  train  character  without  the  means  of  sin  and  evil,  but 
that  does  not,  they  hold,  impugn  omnipotence,  since  it  simply  means 
that  God  cannot  do  what  is  impossible  by  nature  of  things,     (d)  Evolu- 
tionary theory — If  this  be  so,  the  fact  that  God  uses  evil  to  accomplish 
good  may  either  tend  to  obliterate  the  distinction  between  the  two,  or 
may  discredit  the  divine  power  if  he  has  to  use  evil  (sin)  for  the  training 
of  men.    So,  the  evolutionary  solution  combines  the  best  of  the  former 
two  and  says  that  man  has  not  so  much  freedom  as  to  defeat  God's 
power  by  evil-doing,  nor  is  sin  in  the  divine  plan,  but  it  is  incidental 
to  the  process  of  life.    Those  who  espouse  this  theory  conceive  that  men 
are  co-workers  of  God  in  evolution,  with  a  certain  amount  of  initiative. 
Men  created  sin,  but  the  conditions  that  led  them  to  the  misdemeanor 


78  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

are  ultimately  due  to  God  as  the  Creator  of  the  universe.  So  they 
conceive  a  joint-responsibility  of  God  and  men  for  the  existence  of  sin 
and  evil.  But  they  think  that  this  does  not  disparage  omnipotence  nor 
supreme  benevolence,  because  the  fact  of  sin  and  evil  is  due  to  the 
nature  of  things  in  development  and  impossible  to  be  eliminated  even  by 
an  omnipotent  God  at  once.  God  who  cannot  do  the  impossible, 
according  to  their  definition  of  omnipotence,  is  not  limited  in  power. 
(3)  Solutions  by  denying  Omnipotence.  Finally  we  come  to  the 
non-omnipotence  solutions:  (a)  in  one  of  which  it  is  held  that  the  very 
fact  that  God  could  not  avoid  incidental  evil  and  sin  if  He  were  to  create 
the  world  of  moral  system,  shows  that  He  is  limited  in  power.  Hence 
it  is  better  not  to  call  Him  omnipotent  as  soon  as  we  admit,  as  in  the 
previous  solution,  the  co-operation  and  joint-responsibility  of  God  and 
men  in  the  works  of  evolution,  (b)  Another  solution  is  the  hypothesis 
of  a  foreign  Power  coexistent  with  God.  Here  it  is  supposed  that  if 
the  supremely  good  and  omnipotent  God  were  the  Creator  of  all  things 
in  the  universe  it  must  be  perfect  as  himself.  There  must  be,  of  course,  a 
certain  amount  of  selfishness,  hardship,  competition,  and  the  like  opposite 
of  good  and  virtue,  but  these  would  never  deteriorate  into  sin  and  evil  in 
a  perfect  world.  The  fact  that  our  world  is  otherwise  would  call  forth 
the  hypothesis  of  a  secondary  Power  whose  disturbing  influence  is  the 
cause  of  maladjustment,  and  thus  it  supposes  that  we  can  keep  the 
perfection  of  God's  benevolence  intact  by  giving  up  the  idea  of  divine 
omnipotence. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  HCJMAN  FREEDOM  AND  OMNIPOTENCE 

Problem 

The  problem  of  human  freedom  is  closely  connected  with  the  problem 
of  sin,  since  moral  evil  is  supposed,  by  many  theologians,  to  originate 
in  the  free  will.  God  created  man  as  free  agent,  and  as  a  free  agent,  we 
are  told,  man  is  responsible  for  all  his  conduct.  But  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  asserted  that  "creationism  must  logically  exclude  the  possibility  of 
freedom.  For  the  Creator  cannot,  of  course,  create  except  by  exactly 
and  precisely  conceiving,  otherwise  his  product  would  not  differ  from 
non-entity.  "l  Since  God  is  the  source  of  all  being,  says  Clarke,  all  being 
is  dependent  upon  him  and  subject  to  his  control.2  If  God  is  thus  the 
creator  of  all  things,  how  much  of  control  has  he  over  his  creatures? 
This  is  the  problem  of  freedom.  Such  question  as  this,  however,  is  not 
usually  included  by  theologians  in  the  problem  of  omnipotence  but  in 
that  of  omniscience.  Yet  since  an  omniscient  Being  cannot  realize  his 
eternal  plan  without  being  omnipotent,  the  assertion  of  the  divine 
omniscience  always  implies  the  divine  omnipotence.  And  on  the  other 
hand,  omnipotence  implies  omniscience:  if  God  is  not  omniscient  he 
cannot  be  omnipotent,  because  he  cannot  do  what  he  knows  not  how  to 
do ;  hence  non-omniscience  may  limit  his  omnipotence.  Thus  understood, 
affirmation  of  omnipotence  must  always  imply  affirmation  of  omniscience, 
and  in  this  respect  the  problem  of  freedom  and  omnipotence  is  insepar- 
ably bound  up  with  that  of  freedom  and  omniscience;  for  if  human  free- 
dom defeat  omniscience  it  would  also  defeat  omnipotence.  Our  problem 
then  can  be  restated  in  a  combined  form:  namely,  if  God  is  omnipotent, 
and  therefore  omniscient,  how  far  would  he  control  human  conduct  by 
his  knowledge,  plan,  and  power?  What  kind  of  freedom,  if  any,  can 
we  have  under  the  universal  sovereignty  of  an  almighty  God  who  is  also 
all -knowing?  If  he  created  us  as  free  agents,  does  it  not  mean  a  self- 
limitation  on  his  part,  or  is  he  still  omnipotent  and  omniscient? 

Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem 

I.  Possible  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Absolute  Omni- 
potence. (1)  Monistic  Absolutism.  Let  us  first  see  whether  we  can 
make  human  freedom  and  divine  omnipotence  compatible  by  monistic 
idealism  such  as  that  of  Royce.  Royce  does  not  assert  absolute  omnipo- 

1Howison,   Limits  of  Evolution,  p.   341. 

2  Clarke,  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.   136. 


80  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

tence  explicitly.  But  as  he  identifies  human  will  and  divine  will  in 
some  respects,  human  free  will  may  be  made  perfectly  consistent  with 
divine  will.  Man  is  causally  determined,  according  to  Royce,  by  heredi- 
ty and  environment,  but  teleologically  free  in  so  far  as  he  is  consciously 
acting  toward  the  fulfilment  of  his  task  or  life  plan.3  This  world,  in 
its  wholeness,  is  the  expression  of  one  determinate  and  absolute  purpose, 
the  fulfilment  of  the  divine  will.4  Royce  holds  that  in  my  act  of  fulfilling 
my  task  that  is  unique  to  me  among  all  the  different  beings  of  the  universe 
God  is  acting  in  me,  that  is,  he  wills  in  me,  as  the  divine  consciousness 
comprehends  my  life  in  its  unity.  But  it  is  also  true,  says  he,  that 
"  this  divine  unity  is  here  and  now  realized  by  me,  by  me  only  through 
my  unique  act.  My  act,  too,  is  a  part  of  this  divine  life,  that,  however 
fragmentary,  is  not  elsewhere  repeated  in  the  divine  consciousness. 
When  I  thus  consciously  and  uniquely  will,  it  is  I  then  who  just  here  am 
God's  will,  or  who  just  here  consciously  act  for  the  whole.  I  then  am 
so  far  free.  "5 

But  this  individual  self,  according  to  Royce,  has  also  a  freedom  to 
sin  by  "consciously  choosing  to  forget  an  Ought  that  he  already  recog- 
nizes."6 His  free  will  in  sinning  then  must  also  be  attributed  to  the 
divine  will  as  its  part  or  else  it  is,  as  James  puts  it,  "as  if  the  characters 
in  a  novel  were  to  get  up  from  the  pages,  and  walk  away  and  transact 
business  of  their  own  outside  of  the  author's  story."7  Thus  it  seems 
that  there  is  no  adequate  solution  of  the  problem  on  the  monistic  hypo- 
thesis by  identifying  man's  free  will  with  God's  as  Royce  does,  for  then 
sin  would  disparage  the  divine  goodness  or  else  defeat  his  omnipotence  by 
getting  outside  of  his  control. 

(2)  Immanent  Transcendentalism.  Let  us  now  consider  the  problem 
by  the  hypothesis  of  traditional  theology  in  which  God,  unlike  that  of 
monistic  absolutism,  is  regarded  to  be  an  absolute  and  transcendent 
personality  distinct  from  his  creatures.  If  God  in  this  sense  is  absolutely 
omnipotent  and  omniscient,  all  events  in  the  universe  can  be  absolutely 
determined,  for  then  nothing  would  happen  against  his  will.  If  any- 
thing happen  contrary  to  his  will,  he  can  directly  control  and  undo  it  at 
his  pleasure,  having  foreseen  it  perfectly  and  known  perfectly  how  tc 
counteract  it.  There  is  no  question  about  the  locus  of  the  responsibility 

1  Royce,  The  World  and  the  Individual,  Vol.  II,  293  ff. 

4  Ibid.,  II,  292. 

•  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  468. 

9  Ibid.,    Vol.    II,    359. 

7  James,  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  194. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  81 

if  God  has  determined  and  can  determine  all  events  whatever,  according 
to  his  omnipotence  as  well  as  omniscience.  All  human  conduct  would 
then  be  necessarily  determined  by  the  absolute  sovereign,  and  man  a 
puppet  of  the  divine  omnipotence.  If  there  is  an  omnipotent  God, 
says  McTaggart,  we  are  not  responsible  to  him  for  our  sins,  nor  has 
God  any  right  to  punish  us.  For  punishment  by  itself  is  an  evil  and 
cannot  abolish  the  effects  of  the  sin  for  which  it  is  inflicted,  since  what  is 
done  is  done  and  can  never  be  undone.  Consequently  no  person  can 
be  justified  in  inflicting  punishment  if  he  might  have  avoided  the  neces- 
sity by  preventing  the  offense,  unless  the  final  result  of  the  sin  and  the 
punishment  should  be  something  better  than  would  have  happened  with 
out  either  of  them.  But  suppose  any  good  result  which  might  follow 
from  the  sin  and  the  punishment  could  be  obtained  by  such  a  God,  in 
virtue  of  his  omnipotence,  without  the  sin  or  the  punishment,  then  God 
would  not  be  justified  in  punishing  sin,  because  God  could  attain  the 
desired  results  without  the  punishment.  Hence  we  should  not  be 
responsible  for  our  sins  to  God.8 

II.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Affirming  Modified  Omnipotence. 
McTaggart  in  the  preceding  section  has  dealt  with  the  problem  by  sup- 
posing an  absolutely  omnipotent  God,  but,  as  we  have  seen  in  our  second 
chapter,  current  theology  has  modified  the  definition  of  omnipotence  in 
reference  to  God's  rationality  and  morality.  As  God  does  not  act  in 
absolute  ways  since  he  has  created  free  agents,  we  are  said  to  have 
some  freedom  and  consequent  responsibility  for  our  acts.  Let  us  see 
what  sort  of  freedom  is  possible  in  a  different  modification  of  the  divine 
omnipotence. 

1.  Conception  of  Freedom  in  Quasi  Absolute  Omnipotence.  As  we 
have  seen  in  the  discussion  of  the  purpose  of  creation,  the  theologians 
who  affirm  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  consider  men  as  mere  instruments 
for  glorifying  the  divine  perfections.  God  made  men  as  a  part  of  his 
fixed  eternal  plan  or  decrees,  and  behind  the  plan  there  are  his  omniscient 
wisdom  to  make  it  certain  and  his  almighty  power  to  execute  it.  Chas. 
Hodge  expounding  this  conception  of  the  divine  decrees,  says  that  the 
end  contemplated  in  all  God's  decrees  is  his  own  glory.  "As  God  is 
infinite,  and  all  creatures  are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  Him,  it  is 
plain  that  the  revelation  of  his  nature  and  perfections  must  be  the 
highest  conceivable  end  of  all  things. "  The  content  of  such  revelation, 
however,  is  a  mere  despotic  caprice  in  our  human  sense,  but  Hodge  calls 
it  a  divine  pleasure.  "Some  are  saved,"  says  he,  "and  others  perish 

'McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  pp.   164-166. 


82  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

not  because  some  of  their  own  will  believe  and  others  do  not  believe, 
but  simply  because,  Thus  it  seemed  good  in  the  eyes  of  God.  "9  Hodge 
also  says  that  the  whole  course  of  history  is  the  development  of  the 
divine  plan,  yet  "Human  history  is  little  else  than  the  history  of  sin."10 
It  may  be  questioned  if  God  is  in  history  to  realize  his  fixed  plan,  how 
far  the  human  conduct  is  controlled  by  God.  If  a  sinful  act  occurs 
only  by  God's  permission,  as  Hodge  holds,  does  it  not  amount  to  say  that 
sin  is  sanctioned  by  God?  At  any  rate,  if  sin  does  not  occur  except 
through  the  divine  permission,  is  it  the  result  of  human  freedom? 

This  question  appears  still  more  pertinent  when  we  consider  Hodge's 
account  on  the  relation  between  freedom  and  foreordination  or  the  divine 
decrees.  The  foreordination  of  all  events,  says  Hodge,  is  not  inconsis- 
tent with  the  free  agency  of  man,  since  the  divine  foreknowledge  makes 
man's  act  ''certain"  but  not  "necessary."11  In  spite  of  the  contention 
that  certainty  is  not  necessity,  Hodge's  conception  of  freedom  as  self- 
determination  is  really  nothing  but  determinism  since  the  human  nature 
according  to  which  we  determine  our  will  is  fixed.  For  he  says  that 
the  moral  character  of  dispositions  or  principles  does  not  depend  upon 
their  volitional  origin:  " whether  concreated,  innate,  infused,  or  self- 
acquired,  they  are  good  or  bad  according  to  their  nature, "  and  that  nature 
is  the  ground  of  moral  responsibility.12  Thus,  according  to  Hodge,  man 
must  be  responsible  for  his  inherent  nature  over  which  he  has  no  control 
whatever.  Such  an  idea  of  freedom  and  responsibility  is  intolerable 
to  our  modern  sense  of  human  personality.  Sheldon,  for  instance, 
stenuously  opposes  this  tenet  and  discards  it  as  sheer  determinism.13 
Strong's  conception  of  freedom  is  closely  allied  to  Hodge's,  though  at 
minor  points  he  makes  objection  to  the  latter.  Hodge  says  that  a 
wicked  man  is  born  wicked  and  a  good  man  good;  Strong  largely  accepts 
it  as  a  presupposition  of  "regeneration,"  but  he  allows  more  freedom  in 
the  power  of  contrary  choice  and  of  modifying  man's  character,  although 
"nine- tenths"14  of  human  activity  is  predetermined  by  his  nature 
and  environment.  This  theory  we  may  take  as  a  typical  self-determina- 
tion theory  of  deterministic  freedom,  while  we  regard  Hodge's  as  almost 
absolute  determinism.  Assertion  of  quasi  absolute  omnipotence  is  not 
inconsistent  with  this  theory  of  freedom,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that 

9  Hodge,  Systematic  Theology,  Vol.  I,  535  ff. 

10  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  544. 

11  Ibid.,  I,  544-590,  II,  298-304. 

12  Ibid.,  II,  111. 

13  Sheldon,  System  of  Christian  Doctrine,  301. 
"Strong,  Systematic  Theology,  509  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  83 

such  human  freedom  does  not  amount  to  much,  since  our  freedom  is 
held  to  narrow  limits  of  self-determination  within  inborn  capacity  by 
the  eternally  fixed  plan  of  the  almighty  all-knower. 

2.  Conception  of  Freedom  in  "  Deterministic "  Omnipotence.  In 
the  definition  of  omnipotence  (Chapt.  II)  we  called  for  convenience  sake 
those  conceptions  of  omnipotence  given  by  Harris  and  Brown  "  determin- 
istic." This  term  may  be  ambiguous  here,  since  all  those  who  affirm 
modified  omnipotence  are  deterministic  in  their  conception  of  freedom, 
yet  it  must  be  understood  that  Hodge  and  Strong  who  are  asserters  of 
quasi  absolute  omnipotence  verge  toward  pure  determinism  in  content, 
while  Sheldon  and  Clarke  who  are  classed  among  the  asserters  of  "crea- 
tive" omnipotence  have  some  indeterministic  element.  So  we  may 
properly  call  Harris  and  Brown  asserters  of  "deterministic"  omnipotence. 
Here  we  give  only  Brown's  self-realization  theory  of  deterministic  freedom 
as  it  is  typical  in  relation  to  the  assertion  of  "  deterministic  "omnipotence. 

Human  freedom,  according  to  Brown,  is  man's  voluntary  obedience 
to  the  laws  not  of  his  own  make  but  of  reason,  as  he  says  that  "Spirit  is 
the  sphere  of  reason  and  of  freedom  which  transforms  blind  submission 
into  willing  service."15  Man's  freedom  then  does  not  involve  a  limitation 
of  God's  power,  since  there  is  no  faculty  of  choice  in  man  beyond  what 
is  determined  by  his  nature.  Man  has  no  power  to  raise  himself  above 
his  character  which  is  conditioned  by  heredity  and  environment,  both 
physical  and  social.  "This  does  not  mean,"  says  Brown,  "that  the 
determinist  regards  character  as  something  fixed  and  unchangeable.  On 
the  contrary,  he  recognizes  that  it  is  the  subject  of  a  constant  develop- 
ment (or  deterioration),  in  which  choice,  with  its  resultant  judgments 
of  praise  or  blame,  is  the  determining  factor.  His  contention  is  simply 
that  this  whole  process  of  training  takes  place  under  law,  so  that,  if  we 
knew  all  the  influences  which  enter  into  the  making  of  any  choice,  we 
could  predict  its  outcome  with  certainty."16  Thus  he  rejects  the  so- 
called  libertarian  conception  as  that  of  Benett,  that  there  is  in  all  choice 
an  unpredictable  element  which  essentially  constitutes  the  moral  responsi- 
bility of  a  personal  agent.17  Free  will,  according  to  Brown,  is  a  coming 
back  to  one's  own  true  nature.  "Man  realizes,"  says  he,  "his  true 
ideal  in  the  measure  that  his  choice  ceases  to  be  arbitrary,  and  becomes 
the  expression  of  a  consistent  character.  "18  Man  is  just  as  determined 

15  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  p.  244;  see  also  Harris,  God  the  Creator 
and  Lord  of  All,   Vol.   II,   54.. 
"Brown,  op.  cit.,  246. 
17  Benett,  Religion  and  Free  Will,  282-285. 
"Brown,  op.  cit.,  248. 


84  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

by  his  nature  as  God  is  determined  by  his  own  nature.  Man's  character 
develops  but  to  the  certain  limits  set  by  God  as  his  ideal.  His  destiny  is 
prescribed  by  divine  providence,  and  so  he  cannot  be  the  sole  author  of 
sin.  God  uses  sin  and  suffering  for  educative  purposes  in  training  of 
men.  Such  being  the  nature  of  freedom  and  its  relation  to  sin,  human 
freedom,  Brown  holds,  does  not  interfere  with  the  divine  omnipotence, 
for  man  is  supposed  to  be  free  only  when  he  is  within  the  divine  law  or 
dependent  on  the  divine  power.  "Freedom,"  says  he,  "is  not  incon- 
sistent with  divine  control.  The  limitation  which  is  involved  in  its  exist- 
ence is  a  self-limitation,  promoting  rather  than  hindering  the  realization 
of  God's  plan,  and  hence  may  legitimately  be  interpreted  as  an  expression 
of  God's  sovereignty."19  God's  self -limitation  is  thus  understood  not 
as  real  limitation  but  an  expression  of  his  omnipotence. 

3.  Conception  of  Freedom  in  "Creative"  Omnipotence.  Both 
Sheldon  and  Clarke  believe  that  there  is  some  margin  of  arbitrariness 
in  human  choice,  and  herein  lies  men's  creative  or  initiative  power  by 
which  he  contributes  to  God's  incessant  work  of  creation.  This  kind 
of  freedom  belongs  to  what  McTaggart  calls  the  deterministic  freedom 
of  self-direction.20  "The  power  of  contrary  choice,"  says  Sheldon,  "is 
a  necessary  endowment  of  man  as  a  free  responsible  being.  "21  Freedom 
thus  denned,  according  to  Sheldon,  as  a  power  of  contrary  choice  signifies 
that  a  wrong  act  is  also  a  free  act  if  a  man  chooses  it  by  his  own  self- 
determination,  while  by  Harris  and  Brown  wrong  acts  are  regarded  as 
unfree.  This  conception  of  freedom  is  taken  up  by  Clarke  in  connection 
with  the  problem  of  divine  omnipotence.  Let  us  first  see  how  he  con- 
ceives of  the  classical  idea  of  predestination  since  he  is  the  least  asserter 
of  it  among  theologians  in  relation  to  the  problem  of  freedom.  Clarke 
rejects  predestination  in  its  absolute  meaning  but  keeps  it  in  a  much 
attenuated  form  under  the  different  name  of  "plan,"  as  other  recent 
theologians  do. 

"If  we  are  not  free,"  says  he,  "we  are  not  responsible;  in  that  case  we  can  do 
neither  right  nor  wrong  and  our  life  has  no  moral  significance.  Our  nature  affirms 
our  freedom;  and  if  we  are  not  free,  we  cannot  trust  our  nature,  which  affirms  it — 
Doubtless  our  freedom  is  limited  but  surely  it  is  real.  Neither  foreordination  nor 
fate  has  slain  freedom,  but  freedom  lives."22  "We  know  ourselves  free,  and  yet  find 
evidences  of  a  plan  in  us  that  is  not  our  own.  Above  the  field  of  human  freedom  he 
(God)  exercises  a  sovereignty  in  which  there  is  no  constraint.  Evidence  of  this  higher 

19  Brown,  op.  cit.,  117. 

20  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,   140-145. 

21  Sheldon,    System   of  Christian   Doctrine,    294. 

22  Clarke,   An  Outline  of  Christian   Theology,   145  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  85 

sovereignty  meets  us  wherever  we  find  our  lives  falling  into  line,  and  working  out  a 
purpose  that  we  did  not  form.  Men  are  not  forced  to  work  out  this  idea  which  is 
not  their  own,  yet  God  rules  them  from  above  their  freedom."23 
Thus  we  finally  come  to  a  predestination  in  spite  of  freedom,  since  man 
is  made,  according  to  Clarke,  to  realize  the  preconceived  plan,  being 
indirectly  controlled  by  God's  influence  though  not  directly  coerced.  In 
respect  to  this  position  our  question  is:  if  an  external  influence  which  is 
working  toward  a  definite  end  as  in  the  divine  plan  is  so  decisive  that 
it  may  ultimately  determine  his  action,  has  man  freedom?  If  not  so 
decisive  as  to  determine  him,  might  not  his  freedom  overstep  the  divine 
plan?  We  shall  see  the  solution  given  by  Clarke  in  the  next  paragraph. 

Grant  that  man  has  freedom  as  much  as  God  has  given  him,  does  not 
that  gift  imply  God's  self-limitation?  Clarke  pictures  this  self-limita- 
tion as  a  real  limitation  to  divine  omnipotence.  God  exercises,  says  he, 
direct  control  throughout  the  universe,  save  as  he  has  set  off  spiritual 
beings  with  a  certain  independence.  God  has  created  free  agents  to 
whom  he  has  given  certain  power  to  do  their  own  will,  even  though  it  be 
opposed  to  him. 

"By  such  creative  action  God  has  limited  himself.  He  would  otherwise  have 
had  the  only  will  in  the  universe;  but  he  has  called  other  wills  into  being,  given  to  each 
one  a  limited  field  of  genuine  sovereignty.  It  is  plain  that  from  the  exercise  of  this 
created  freedom,  there  may  follow  results  that  the  will  of  God  would  not  have  pro- 
duced if  it  had  kept  the  field  to  itself.  If  the  will  of  God  is  to  be  done  in  free  beings, 
it  must  be  done  in  accordance  with  their  nature,  through  the  freedom  that  he  has  given 
them.  They  must  be  willing  to  do  it  and  do  it  willingly.  Of  course  his  will  affects 
them  in  many  matters  where  it  does  not  appeal  to  them  as  moral  agents;  but  wherever 
he  seeks  the  doing  of  his  will  by  the  moral  agents  he  has  limited  himself  to  moral  means 
of  influencing  them.  The  will  of  God  that  men  should  be  virtuous  cannot  be  enforced 
upon  them,  for  any  action  that  was  enforced  would  not  be  virtuous.  Free  spirit  must 
be  influenced,  they  cannot  be  forced.  God  shows  respect  for  his  creatures,  and  for 
himself  as  their  creator,  and  upon  the  independence  that  he  has  given  them  he  makes 
no  attempt  forcibly  to  intrude."24 

God  thus  limits  himself  by  creating  free  agents.  Clarke,  however, 
does  not  consider  this  self-limitation  of  God  as  an  obstacle  to  his  concep- 
tion of  omnipotence,  because  he  does  not  admit  that  the  self-limitation  as 
God's  free  act  is  to  be  treated  like  an  external  limitation.  If  God, 
says  Clarke,  is  not  limited  externally,  he  does  not  lose  his  omnipotence. 
But  in  reality  if  God  has  created  free  agents  as  objective  realities  in 
the  universe,  these  free  agents  may  at  their  will  defeat  the  divine  plan 
and  eternally  disobey  God  if  they  choose,  since  God  cannot  coerce  them 
although  he  may  try  his  best  ever  to  influence  them.  Recognizing  this 

23  Clarke,    op.    ciL,    150. 

24  Ibid.,  138. 


86  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

difficulty  Brown  has  rightly  rejected  this  kind  of  freedom25  and  holds 
to  his  own  more  deterministic  conception.  The  free  will  theory  of  this 
type,  says  Brown,  asserts  that  God,  in  creating  free  agents,  has  limited 
himself,  but  this  imperils  the  divine  control:  if  God,  in  creating  man, 
could  not  prevent  man  from  sinning,  what  reason  have  we  for  believing 
that  he  will  ever  be  able  to  do  so?26  If  Brown's  contention  is  legitimate, 
we  may  deny  omnipotence,  when  we  assert  human  freedom  as  Clarke 
does. 

4.  Summary.  We  need  not  recount  here  what  we  have  gone  over 
in  this  section,  but  simply  note  the  fact  that,  as  we  come  from  Hodge  to 
Clarke,  and  recognition  of  human  freedom  gradually  increases,  the 
problem  of  omnipotence  grows  tenser,  and  finally  the  assertion  of  freedom 
such  as  Sheldon's  and  Clarke's  is  regarded  by  some  advocates  of  omni- 
potence as  a  dangerous  ground.  If  we  should  assume  any  amount  of 
human  freedom  which  God  has  granted  so  that  he  cannot  interfere 
with  its  free  use,  God  must  be  regarded  as  no  longer  omnipotent.  If 
God  can,  after  having  granted  freedom,  break  at  any  moment  into  the 
sacred  domain  of  human  freedom,  God  would  be  omnipotent,  but  our 
freedom  in  that  case  would  be  nothing  but  a  shadow.  We  have  seen  that 
the  assertion  of  omnipotence  even  in  a  modified  sense  cannot  avoid  this 
dilemma,  and  more  recent  theologians  are  tending  toward  a  denial  of 
omnipotence,  in  the  interest  of  human  freedom. 

III.  Solutions  of  the  Problem  by  Denying  Omnipotence.  1.  Human 
Freedom  and  Non-Omnipotence.  The  moment  we  deny  the  divine 
omnipotence,  there  would  be  no  more  problem  of  human  freedom;  man 
is  not  then  circumscribed  within  a  fixed  limit  of  freedom.  He  is  of 
course  not  absolutely  free,  yet  there  will  be  a  region  of  his  freedom  no- 
body else  can  touch.  Man  himself  is  creative  with  his  own  initiative  as 
God  is  creative.  The  universe  would  be  a  joint-product  of  God  and 
men.  This  freedom  involves  more  responsibility  than  is  the  case  when 
we  affirm  divine  omnipotence.  "  If  there  is  a  God  who  is  not  omnipotent," 
says  McTaggart,  "it  would  be  quite  possible  for  the  determinist  to  hold 
that  we  are  responsible  to  him  for  our  sins.  Such  a  God  might  be  unable 
to  create  a  universe  without  sin,  or  at  any  rate  unable  to  do  so  without 
producing  some  greater  evil.  And  he  might  find  it  possible,  as  men  do, 
to  check  that  sin  by  means  of  a  system  of  punishments.  "27  Thus  McTag- 
gart holds  that  the  problem  of  human  freedom  and  responsibility  can 
only  be  solved  by  denying  omnipotence. 

25  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  275. 

26  Ibid.,  209. 

27  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  166  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  87 

2.  Dualistic  Solution  of  the  Problem  of  Freedom.  The  author  of 
Evil  and  Evolution  attempted  to  solve  the  problem  of  sin  and  evil,  as 
we  have  seen,  by  assuming  the  intrusion  of  a  diabolical  power  into  the 
perfectly  developing  universe  of  good  God.  We  also  remember  that  he 
took  issue  with  the  theory  that  evil  is  inevitable  in  the  moral  system  of 
free  agents,  his  contention  being  that  evil  was  not  necessarily  incidental 
to  the  freedom  of  the  human  will.  So  he  had  to  show  that  the  world 
of  good  God,  unless  disturbed  by  an  evil  Power,  must  have  been  develop- 
ing perfectly  well  with  freedom  for  human  wills  and  with  their  efforts 
crowned  with  characteristic  achievements.  He  now  wants  to  establish 
his  contention  by  the  facts  of  practical  life  in  which  he  supposes  human 
freedom  to  be  possible  without  producing  any  evil  or  human  effort  with- 
out any  task  of  conquering  evil,  if  God  were  the  sole  master  of  the 
universe.  If  he  cannot  prove  that  evil  is  not  internally  due  to  the  moral 
system  of  free  agents,  then  he  cannot  establish  his  theory  of  external 
intrusion  of  evil  into  the  universe,  and  consequently  his  solutions  of 
other  problems  by  the  dualistic  hypothesis  must  also  be  thrown  over- 
board. So  we  add  here  to  the  solution  of  our  problem  of  freedom  his 
arguments  for  the  possibility  of  human  freedom  and  effort  without 
involving  any  evil  consequences,  unless  disturbed  by  the  Satanic  power. 
As  the  author  does  not  consider  immaturity  to  be  any  imperfection, 
or  at  least  evil,  just  as  childhood  is  not  any  more  evil  than  manhood, 
he  conceives  of  the  evolution  of  the  universe  to  be  a  very  smooth  affair 
with  everything  perfect  in  its  kind,  unless  disturbed  by  an  external  evil. 

(1)  Perfect  Life  and  Freedom.  The  author  has  to  show  that  perfect 
life  is  not  the  life  of  puppets  but  of  free  agents  never  deteriorating  into 
evil,  if  God  were  omnipotent.  "All  that  men,"  says  he,  "have  ever 
dreamed  or  can  dream  of  a  heaven  is  implied  in  the  single  phrase,  'perfect 
creature  in  a  perfect  environment.'  .  .  .  Such  a  condition  it  seems  to 
me  in  the  highest  degree  probable  that  a  beneficent  Creator  would  design 
from  the  very  first,  and  would  desire  to  ensure  through  all  the  infinite 
unfoldings  of  creation. "  But  how  can  we  assume  the  highest  possible 
type  of  manhood  without  supposing  he  is  a  free  agent,  and  if  a  free 
agent,  free  to  do  wrong?  It  is  like  assuming  the  possibility  of  a  perfect 
light  while  denying  the  possibility  of  a  shadow.  This  old  difficulty  is 
met  by  the  author  with  the  following  argument: 

"We  are  all  agreed  that  an  essential  characteristic  of  the  highest  manhood  is 
free  will.  If  you  take  away  a  man's  power  to  do  wrong,  no  doubt  you  injure  his  man- 
hood by  depriving  him  of  the  firmness  and  fortitude  that  come  from  trial  and  test, 
and  of  the  conscious  merit  of  doing  right.  Yet  it  is  quite  correct  to  say  the  higher 
the  man,  the  nobler  and  stronger  the  character,  the  more  impossible  it  becomes  for 


88  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

him  to  do  evil. "  The  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  says  the  author,  a  high-minded  gen- 
tleman with  his  salary  £15,000  a  year,  does  not  pick  a  pocket  although  perfectly  he 
is  free  to  do  it.  "Perfectly  healthy  mind  in  a  perfectly  healthy  body,  placed  in  a 
perfectly  organized  world  and  ruled  by  laws  absolutely  adapted  to  the  whole  system 
of  things,  could  not  possibly  think  erroneously  upon  any  subject  involving  questions 
of  good  and  evil,  could  not  possibly  desire  to  do  wrong,  and  yet  that  mind  shall  be 
free— literally  free."28 

(2)  Perfect  Life  and  Effort.  It  will  be  objected,  the  author  observes, 
that  such  a  world  of  perfect  adjustment  is  quite  inconceivable,  and  even  if 
it  were  not,  it  would  be  a  world  not  worth  living  in.  There  could  be 
nothing  like  physical,  mental,  or  moral  thew  or  sinew.  An  earth  in 
which  sunbeams  were  never  too  hot  and  winter  never  too  cold,  in  which 
every  creature  had  just  what  was  requisite,  would  be  no  world  at  all  for 
the  training  of  men.  It  might  be  all  very  well  for  rose  gardens,  but  not 
for  men.  Evolutionists  also  contend  that  without  the  vigorous  weeding 
out  of  the  imperfect  the  progress  of  the  world  would  not  have  been 
possible.  Advance  everywhere  is  by  struggle  with  adverse  surroundings. 
If  all  living  creatures  were  perfect  of  their  kind,  there  would  be  no  devel- 
opment, no  progress,  for  there  would  be  no  demand  for  exertion. 

"Well  it  is  false,"  retorts  the  author,  "development  is  not  necessarily  by  pain 
and  internecine  strife  and  antagonism.  ...  All  the  higher  developments  of  life 
are  the  outcome  of  an  exactly  opposite  principle,  and  all  the  stupendous  struggle  of 
creation  going  on  under  our  eyes  is  a  struggle  to  get  off  that  wrong  line  of  development 
on  to  the  right  one.  ...  A  perfect  world  would  have  been  quite  as  full  of  activity, 
quite  as  stimulating  to  every  faculty  of  brain  and  body,  but  the  stimulus  would  have 
been  entirely  wholesome,  the  activity  would  have  been  the  joyous  activity  of  health, 
and  the  outcome  would  have  been  good,  only  good.  Progress  is  not  necessarily  by 
pain,  and  strife,  and  antagonism.  .  .  .  Any  notion  that  a  world  of  perfect  adjustment 
would  be  a  world  of  stagnating  idleness  and  insipidity,  a  dead,  uninteresting  level  of 
uniformity,  a  world  without  aims  and  objects,  without  ideals  to  stimulate  or  purposes 
to  attain,  is  a  notion  that  could  originate  only  in  a  totally  inadequate  conception  of 
what  is  implied  in  a  world  of  perfect  adjustment."29 

Thus  the  author  holds  that  effort  has  its  place  in  the  world  of  perfect 
adjustment:  life  will  progress  into  an  ever  greater  perfection  through 
human  freedom  and  effort. 

We  cannot  know  whether  such  a  perfect  adjustment  is  possible  in  the 
world  of  good  God  if  it  was  not  invaded,  as  the  author  supposes,  by  the 
diabolical  power.  But  at  any  rate,  if  the  author's  contention  is  valid,  it 
simply  means  that  the  indisputable  fact  of  the  existence  of  evils  in  our 
universe  should  be  attributed  to  a  Satanic  intruder  from  outside,  and 
consequently,  our  good  God  who  is  struggling  with  co-operation  of  men 
to  extirpate  this  evil  influence  and  maladjustment  is  no  longer  omnipotent 
until  he  triumphs,  if  he  can,  completely  over  the  power  of  his  enemy. 

™Evil  and  Evolution,   pp.    103-106. 
29  Ibid.,  pp.  107  ff. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  CONCEPTION  OF  A  NON-OMNIPOTENT  GOD 

As  we  gave  at  the  outset  a  comprehensive  view  of  the  conception  of 
omnipotence,  we  may  now  gather  up  at  the  close  of  our  discussion 
constructive  statements  of  the  hypothesis  of  a  non-omnipotent  God. 
We  wish  to  see  what  kind  of  God  is  possible  if  we  are  to  deny  his  omni- 
potence. There  are  in  the  main  two  general  types  of  non-omnipotence 
theory,  namely,  (1)  a  non-omnipotent  God  who  is  the  creator  of  the 
universe,  and  (2)  a  non-omnipotent  God  who  is  not  the  creator  but  is 
simply  working  in  it. 

1.  A  Non-Omnipotent  God  Who  is  the  Creator  of  the  Universe. 
(1)  Theologians'  Concession  to  Non-Omnipotence.  By  way  of  transi- 
tion from  the  omnipotence  to  the  non-omnipotence  conception,  let  us 
first  refer  to  those  theologians  who  make  considerable  concession  in 
content  to  the  non-omnipotence  theory,  although  they  are  unwilling  to 
give  up  the  name  of  omnipotence. 

James  Ward,  as  we  have  seen,  makes  a  pluralistic  interpretation  of 
theism  and  conceives  of  the  universe  as  epigenetically  evolving.  This 
world  is  a  world  of  the  Many,  although  all  the  elements  derive  their 
existence  from  the  unitary  God  as  their  initial  Creator.  Ward  asserts 
that  men  are  created  free  agents  with  a  certain  amount  of  initiative  and 
independence  in  order  to  be  co-workers  with  God  in  evolution.  Clarke 
asserts  human  freedom  to  such  an  extent  that  God  has  limited  himself 
in  order  to  give  each  individual  "a  limited  field  of  genuine  sovereignty" 
and  God  is  supposed  to  have  no  control  over  this  domain  of  freedom 
except  only  to  exercise  indirect  influence.  Galloway  likewise  conceives 
of  human  freedom  as  an  absolute  initiative  power.  "We  must  presup- 
pose," says  he,  "a  free  or  uncaused  cause  which  is  the  ground  of  its 
own  action;  the  human  will  is  such  a  free  cause,  and  its  movement  is 
not  to  be  reconstructed  and  explained  by  the  aid  of  factors  beyond 
itself.  "l  Such  an  idea  of  human  freedom  and  the  conception  of  men  as 
co-workers  with  God  in  evolution  consistently  ought  to  deny  omnipotence 
in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  since  God  has  limited  himself  by  the  crea- 
tion of  his  co-workers.  God  in  this  sense  is  analogous  to  a  constitu- 
tional monarch  who  has  delegated  a  part  of  his  power  to  his  subjects. 
Such  a  God  cannot  be  omnipotent  as  the  constitutional  monarch  is  not 
absolute  sovereign.  But  in  spite  of  this  fact  these  theologians  tenaciously 

Galloway,   The  philosophy  of  religion,  537. 


90  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

cling  to  the  traditional  conception  of  an  omnipotent  God  by  denying 
that  self-limitation  is  real  limitation. 

(2)  A  Non-Omnipotent  God  as  Working  in  the  Process  of  Evolution. 
Johnson,  as  we  have  seen,  supposes  that  God,  being  limited  in  power,  has 
possibly  had  only  two  alternatives  in  his  plan  of  creation,  namely,  either 
to  create  a  world  without  life  or  a  world  with  life  and  incidental  evil. 
God  chose  the  latter  alternative  as  the  better,  but  as  it  is  not  the  best  he 
is  incessantly  through  the  process  of  evolution  engaged  in  the  task 
of  conquering  the  evil  incidentally  involved  in  his  creation.     "  His  work, " 
says  Johnson,  "gives  the  impression  of  one  who  moves  slowly,  tentatively, 
as  it  were  feeling  His  way,  to  some  dimly  foreseen  end  by  the  use  of 
instrumentalities  not  thoroughly  mastered."     If  God  is  experiencing 
such  a  task  of  evolutionary  process,  he  is  probably,  though  Johnson  does 
not  clearly  indicate,  a  growing  Being  as  we  are  growing  in  wisdom  and 
love  through  the  experience  of  trial  and  error.     Such  a  God,  Johnson 
declares,  should  not  be  called  almighty,  but  shorn  of  the  term  omnipo- 
tence He  becomes  infinitely  more  real,  worshipful,  and  inspiring. 

(3)  A  Non-Omnipotent  God  as  Creator  but  Hindered  by  a  Rival 
Power.     The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  conceives  of  God  as  perfectly 
benevolent  and  also  powerful,  and  therefore,  if  the  creation  of  the  universe 
were  left  alone  in  his  hands,  he  might  have  produced  a  world  of  perfect 
adjustment  and  harmonious  beauty  without  involving  any  incidental 
evil.    The  author  sees  traces  of  this  divine  ability  in  many  facts  of 
nature  and  the  workings  of  natural  laws.    But  the  fact  that  our  world 
is  in  the  mixed  state  of  good  and  evil  must  be  explained,  the  author 
maintains,  by  the  intrusion  of  a  foreign  Power.    A  diabolical  Power  of 
evil  which  is  co-existent  and  independent  of  God  has  disturbed  the 
perfectly  developing  world  of  the  good  God.     God  cannot  therefore  be 
called  omnipotent  until  he  triumphs  over  his  rival  Power  and  completely 
eliminates  the  invaded  evil. 

(4)  Criticism  of  the  Conception  of  a  Non-Omnipotent  God  as  Creator 
of  the  Universe.    Both  the  theologians  who  affirm  omnipotence  and 
those  who  modify  or  deny  it,  as  far  as  we  have  shown  in  the  preceding 
paragraphs,   believe   God  to  be  the  de  now  Creator  of  the  universe. 
The  universe  with  all  that  it  contains  owes  its  existence  to  God.     Gallo- 
way considers  creation  as  dependence  of  our  existence  on  God,  the 
world  ground;  nevertheless  it  practically  means  that  we  owe  our  existence 
to  the  unitary  Being.     Now  McTaggart  finds  this  conception  of  God  as 
Creator  inadequate  and  inconsistent  with  our  conception  of  God  as 
supremely  good,  no  matter  whether  omnipotent  or  non-omnipotent. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  91 

If  God  is  the  original  Creator  of  the  universe,  even  though  he  may  not 
be  omnipotent,  nothing  can  exist,  says  McTaggart,  except  as  God  wills 
it.  For  nothing  can  exist  unless  he  decides  to  create  it — unless,  that  is, 
he  prefers  its  existence  to  its  non-existence.2  Now,  the  present  world 
as  it  is  includes  evil.  If  God  is  the  sole  and  ex  nihilo  Creator  of  it  all, 
the  evil  must  be  somehow  attributed  to  him,  even  if  he  is  not  omnipotent. 
It  may  be  contended  on  the  non-omnipotence  hypothesis  that  God  has, 
as  he  is  supremely  good,  never  intended  to  produce  evil,  but  that  evil 
exists  against  his  will  because  of  his  limitation  in  power,  just  as  a  good 
man  who  does  not  wish  to  do  evil  yet  produces  it  sometimes  because  of 
his  impotence  to  avert  it.  McTaggart  here  observes  important  differ- 
ence between  man  and  a  creator  God,  even  if  God  is  not  omnipotent. 
Man  is  part  of  a  universe,  all  the  parts  of  which  are  connected.  And, 
therefore,  when  a  man  wills  to  do  something  and  cannot  do  it,  his  impo- 
tence is  never  due  entirely  to  his  own  nature.  Whereas,  with  a  creator 
God  the  matter  is  different.  At  the  moment  when  he  creates  nothing 
exists  except  himself.  He  is  the  only  existing  reality.  Whatever 
happens  must  be  explained  from  his  nature,  and  from  his  nature  alone, 
for  there  is  nothing  else  anywhere.  It  is  from  his  own  nature,  then,  that 
we  must  explain  the  limitation  of  his  power.  Suppose  that  God  endea- 
vors to  produce  whatever  he  wills  antecedently,  e.g.,  a  world  without 
evil,  but  that  he  cannot  create  it  because  he  is  limited  in  his  power.  But, 
since  we  should  believe  that  whatever  he  as  the  de  now  creator  willed 
would  find  nothing  to  hinder  it,  the  impossibility  of  creating  a  world 
without  evil  rests  entirely  in  his  nature,  and  his  nature  in  acting  is 
expressed  simply  by  his  will.  If  this  is  the  case,  the  Creator  ot  the 
universe  cannot  be  a  completely  good  God.  For  then  the  cause  of  the 
evil  in  the  universe  is  not  that  the  Creator  could  not  do  what  he  ante- 
cedently willed  to  do.  Whatever  he  antecedently  willed  to  do  has  been 
done.  But  a  person  whose  antecedent  will  includes  the  produc- 
tion of  evil  cannot  be  good.  And  a  being  who  is  not  good  is  not  God.3 
In  view  of  this,  McTaggart  repudiates  the  idea  of  God's  creatorship 
even  if  he  is  not  omnipotent,  in  case  we  want  to  conceive  of  God  as 
supremely  good.  It  leads  us  then  to  the  positive  statement  of  a  non- 
omnipotent  God  who  is  not  the  Creator  of  the  universe. 

2.  A  Non-Omnipotent  God  Who  is  not  the  Creator  of  the  Universe. 
By  this  hypothesis  is  meant  that  God  is  not  the  original  creator  of  the 
universe,  but  is  possibly  a  designer  or  contriver  without  unlimited 

2  McTaggart,  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  pp.  223-225. 
8 1 'bid.,  pp.  230-232. 


92  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

power.  He  is  of  course  creative  in  the  sense  that  men  are  also  creative 
in  their  own  way  of  combination  and  reconstruction,  but  he  is  not  the 
sole  Creator  and  master  of  the  universe,  since  he  is  hindered  by  many 
external  obstacles  which  do  not  easily  yield  to  his  will,  or  since  he  has 
used  uncreated  material  in  his  creative  work. 

"According  to  this  theory,"  says  McTaggart,  "all  the  non-divine  existent  beings 
of  the  universe  are  co-eternal  with  God,  and  have  not  been  called  into  being  by  his  will. 
Their  existence  is  an  ultimate  fact,  and  a  fact  which  God  has  simply  to  accept,  as  will 
all  have  to  accept  it  about  one  another.  God  can  affect  the  condition  of  these  other 
beings,  in  the  same  way  that  they  can  affect  the  condition  of  one  another,  and,  pre- 
sumably, of  God.  So  far  there  is  no  difference  between  God  and  other  persons.  The 
difference  is  quantitative.  God  is  conceived  to  be  so  much  more  perfect  in  goodness 
than  his  fellow-persons,  that  the  due  attitude  of  all  of  them,  even  the  highest,  towards 
him  is  that  of  reverence  and  adoration.  And  he  is  conceived  to  excel  them  so  much 
in  wisdom  and  power  that  his  efforts  are  capable  of  producing  important  effects,  not 
only  in  one  small  corner  of  the  universe,  but  in  every  part  of  it.  His  posj  ion  towards 
us  is  that  of  a  school-master  towards  his  scholars.  He  does  not  create  us.  He  cannot 
destroy  us.  His  power  over  us  is  limited.  And  we  can  resist  his  power,  and  in  some 
cases  our  resistance  is  effectual — at  any  rate  for  a  time,  perhaps  permanently.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  his  power  is  greater  than  the  power  of  any  one  of  us,  and  is  so  great 
that  it  can  do  much,  though  not  all,  of  what  he  wishes  to  do  throughout  the  universe. 
Independently  of  his  exertions  the  universe  would  not  be  completely  bad,  since  beings 
who  are  capable  of  improvement  cannot  be  completely  bad.  In  spite  of  all  his  exer- 
tions, he  has  not  yet  succeeded  in  making  the  universe  completely  good.  It  is  uncer- 
tain what  his  eventual  success  will  be.  But  it  is  at  any  rate  certain  that  the  universe 
is  better  because  he  is  working  in  it."4 

Among  all  the  possible  conceptions  of  God  this  hypothesis  of  a  non- 
omnipotent  God  who  is  not  Creator  seems,  says  McTaggart,  to  be  by 
far  the  most  tenable  one. 

"There  is  no  more  difficulty  in  believing  such  a  God  to  be  a  person  than  in  be- 
lieving myself  to  be  a  person,  since  he,  like  myself,  is  one  member  in  a  universe,  none 
of  the  other  elements  in  which  are  dependent  on  him  for  their  existence.  These  other 
members,  therefore,  may  form  the  Other  of  his  personality.  Nor  does  the  existence 
of  evil  in  the  universe  reflect,  of  necessity,  on  his  goodness,  since  k  may  possibly  all 
be  due  to  defects  in  the  constitution  of  the  other  beings  co-eternal  with  him.  In  that 
case,  of  course,  we  should  know  that  God's  power  was  not  sufficient  to  remove  these 
evils,  but  this  need  not  imply  defective  goodness  in  him,  any  more  than  it  would 
in  a  man.  He  is  only  responsible  for  making  the  evil  as  small  as  he  can.  And  the 
existence  of  evil  does  not  prove  that  he  has  not  done  this. "  We  may  admit,  McTaggart 
urges,  that  there  is  nothing  antecedently  impossible  in  the  existence  of  such  a  God 
as  this.  "Persons  do  exist.  And  of  these  persons,  some  excel  others  in  virtue,  some 
in  wisdom,  and  some  in  power.  It  happens  not  infrequently  that  one  person  sur- 
passes another  in  all  three.  There  seem  no  reasons  why  one  person  should  not  surpass 
all  others  in  all  three  to  such  an  extent  that  his  goodness  would  enable  him  to  dominate 
the  universe  as  much  as  an  efficient  school-master  dominates  his  school."6 

4  McTaggart,  op.  cit.,  p.  235. 
*Ibid.,  pp.  236  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  93 

There  are  about  three  different  views  on  this  hypothesis  of  God  as 
neither  Creator  nor  omnipotent  Being.  The  first  of  them  conceives  of 
God  as  designer  of  the  universe,  using  material  co-existent  with  him. 
The  second  theory  is  decidedly  Gnostic.  The  universe  may  be  created 
by  some  other  power  but  our  God  is  simply  the  principle  of  good  that 
is  working  in  it  for  its  improvement.  The  third  one  is  the  conception 
of  a  finite  God  who  may  be  one  of  many  gods  in  a  pluralistic  universe. 

(1)  A  Non-Omnipotent  God  as  Designer  of  the  Universe.  McTag- 
gart  as  shown  above  has  given  up  the  idea  of  creator  God  in  the  interest 
of  saving  the  divine  goodness  on  the  ground  that  he  has  to  attribute 
the  existence  of  evils  to  God  if  God  is  the  sole  creator  of  the  universe. 
John  S.  Mill  for  similar  reasons  conceived  of  God  as  a  designer,  and  not 
Creator  of  the  world.  It  was  said  by  Kant  long  ago  that  God  would  not 
necessarily  be  a  creator  if  the  design  argument,  which  is  the  strongest 
of  all  theistic  proofs,  is  to  show  the  divine  existence.  God  would  rather 
be,  says  Kant,  an  architect  of  the  world,  "always  hampered  by  the  qual- 
ity of  the  material  with  which  he  has  to  work,  not  a  creator  to  whose 
idea  everything  is  subject. "  One  only  form  of  belief  in  the  supernatural 
which  stands  wholly  clear  both  of  intellectual  contradiction  and  of  moral 
obliquity,  says  Mill,  is  that  which  resigning  irrevocably  the  idea  of  an 
omnipotent  Creator,  regards  nature  and  life  not  as  the  expression  through- 
out of  the  moral  character  and  purpose  of  the  Deity  but  as  the  product 
of  a  struggle  between  contriving  goodness  and  an  intractable  material, 
as  was  believed  by  Plato,  or  a  Principle  of  Evil,  as  was  the  doctrine  of 
the  Manicheans. 

"A  creed  like  this,"  says  Mill,  "allows  it  to  be  believed  that  all  the  mass  of  evil 
which  exists  was  undesigned  by,  and  exists  not  by  the  appointment  of,  but  in  spite 
of  the  Being  whom  we  are  called  upon  to  worship.  A  virtuous  human  being  assumes 
in  this  theory  the  exalted  character  of  a  fellow-laborer  with  the  highest,  a  fellow- 
combatant  in  the  great  strife;  contributing  his  little,  which  by  the  aggregation  of  many 
like  himself  becomes  much,  towards  that  progressive  ascendency,  and  ultimately 
complete  triumph  of  good  over  evil,  which  history  points  to,  and  which  this  doctrine 
teaches  us  to  regard  as  planned  by  the  Being  to  whom  we  owe  all  the  benevolent  con- 
trivance we  behold  in  Nature."6 

Every  indication  of  design,  Mill  argues,  in  the  cosmos  is  so  much 
evidence  against  the  omnipotence  of  the  designer. 

"For  what  is  meant  by  Design?  Contrivance:  the  adaptation  of  means  to  an 
end.  But  the  necessity  for  contrivance — the  need  of  employing  means — is  a  conse- 
quence of  the  limitation  of  power.  The  very  idea  of  means  implies  that  the  means 
have  an  efficacy  which  the  direct  action  of  the  being  who  employs  them  has  not.  .  .  . 
Wisdom  and  contrivance  are  shown  in  overcoming  difficulties  and  there  is  no  room 

6  Mill,   Three  Essays  on  Religion,  pp.    116ff. 


94  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

for  them  in  a  Being  for  whom  no  difficulties  exist.  The  evidences,  therefore,  of  Natural 
Theology  distinctly  imply  that  the  author  of  the  Kosmos  worked  under  limitations; 
that  he  was  obliged  to  adapt  himself  to  conditions  independent  of  his  will,  and  to 
attain  his  end  by  such  arrangements  as  those  conditions  admitted  of."7 

The  appearances  in  Nature,  Mill  continues,  point  indeed  to  an  origin 
of  the  cosmos,  or  order  in  Nature,  but  not  to  any  commencement,  still 
less  creation,  of  the  material  elements  of  the  universe.  "The  Deity  had 
on  this  hypothesis  to  work  out  his  ends  by  combining  materials  of  a 
given  nature  and  properties.  This  did  require  skill  and  contrivance, 
and  the  means  by  which  it  is  effected  are  often  such  as  justly  excite  our 
wonder  and  admiration;  but  exactly  because  it  requires  wisdom,  it 
implies  limitation  of  power."8  Mill's  conclusion  is  that  whatever  in 
Nature  gives  indication  of  beneficent  design,  proves  this  beneficence 
to  be  armed  only  with  limited  power. 

(2)  A  Gnostic  Conception  of  God  not  as  Creator  but  as  Redeemer. 
H.  G.  Wells  in  his  recent  novel  makes  his  hero  Mr.  Britling  say  that 
theologians  hitherto  had  "silly  absolute  ideas"  about  God,  considering 
him  to  be  omnipotent,  omniscient,  and  omni-every thing.  "God  is  not 
absolute,"  says  he,  "God  is  finite.  ...  A  finite  God  who  struggles 
in  his  great  and  comprehensive  way  as  we  struggle  in  our  weak  and 
silly  way — who  is  with  us — that  is  the  essence  of  all  real  religion.  "9  In 
this  book  the  author  takes  rather  a  Manichean  view  01  the  universe  as 
a  battlefield  of  the  two  rival  principles,  good  and  evil.  But  in  his  more 
recent  work,  God  the  Invisible  King,  in  which  the  author  claims  to  have 
expounded  the  God  of  practical  life,  he  espouses  frankly  a  Gnostic  view 
of  God  not  as  Creator  but  as  Redeemer.10  Wells  characterizes  the 
creator,  if  there  is  any,  as  a  sort  of  Gnostic  Demiurge,  but  in  contempor- 
ary thought,  he  asserts,  "this  Demiurge  is  either  good  or  evil;  it  is  con- 
ceived of  as  both  good  and  evil.  "n  God,  according  to  the  author,  who 
has  written  under  the  influence  of  the  present  European  War,  is  a  militant 
Spirit  of  good  who  is  constantly  fighting  against  evil  and  trying  to  make 
improvement  upon  the  work  of  Demiurge  the  Creator.  "This  new 
faith,"  says  he,  "worships  a  finite  God,  who  is  neither  the  maker  of 
heaven  nor  earth."  But  he  "is  a  God  of  salvation;  he  is  a  spirit,  a 
person,  a  strongly  marked  and  knowable  personality,  loving,  inspiring, 
and  lovable,  who  exists  or  strives  to  exist  in  every  human  soul."12  "It 

7  Mill,   op.   cit.,   p.    176. 
«  Ibid.,  p.  177. 

9  Wells,  Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through,  pp.  405  ff. 

10  Wells,  God  the  Invisible  King,  Preface  p.  XII. 
»/«<*.,  p.  17. 

12  Ibid.,  p.  5. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  95 

is  for  us  to  serve  Him.  He  captains  us,  He  does  not  coddle  us.  He  has 
his  own  ends  for  which  he  needs  us. "  Wells  compares  his  God  to  "a 
dear,  strong  friend  who  comes  and  stands  quietly  beside  me,  shoulder 
to  shoulder.  "13  This  God  exists  in  time  and  grows  as  mankind  grows.14 
It  is  not  God  the  Father  but  the  Son,  a  Christ-like  God.15  Wells  thus 
denies  omnipotence  and  creatorship  to  his  God,  and  asserts  Him  as  a 
king,  a  captain,  the  champion  of  all  that  is  good,  and  love. 

(3)  A  Finite  God  as  a  Director  of  the  Universe.  We  finally  come 
to  a  form  of  idealism  which  James  and  McTaggart  propose  to  us  as  the 
most  reasonable.  "The  only  way  to  escape,"  says  James,  "from  the 
mystery  of  the  'fall,'  of  reality  lapsing  into  appearance,  truth  into  error, 
perfection  into  imperfection;  of  evil,  in  short — the  only  way  of  escape, 
I  say,  from  all  this  is  to  be  frankly  pluralistic  and  assume  that  the  super- 
human consciousness,  however  vast  it  may  be,  has  itself  an  external 
environment,  and  consequently  finite."16  The  line  of  least  resistance, 
both  in  theology  and  philosophy,  says  he,  is  to  accept  along  with  the 
superhuman  consciousness,  the  notion  that  it  is  not  all-embracing,  the 
notion,  in  other  words,  that  there  is  a  God,  but  that  he  is  finite,  either  in 
power  or  in  knowledge,  or  in  both  at  once.17  James  characterizes  his 
finite  God  thus  as  having  an  environment,  being  in  time,  and  working 
out  a  history  just  like  ourselves.18 

In  this  idealism  of  experience  nothing  is  taken  as  real  except  what 
is  known,  and  with  its  known  reality  it  goes  to  conjecture  by  analogy 
that  the  universe  is  consisting  of  conscious  persons  in  mutual  relations. 
"Reality  may  exist,"  says  James,  "in  distributive  form,  in  the  shape 
not  of  an  all  but  of  a  set  of  caches.  "19  Among  these  caches  or  persons 
there  may  be  one  directing  person  who  greatly  excels  all  others  both  in 
wisdom  and  power,  and  who  can  be  worshipped  as  a  God  if  he  is  also 
good.  Such  a  director  of  the  universe,  says  McTaggart,  as  one  of  a 
society  of  selves,  may  not  be  perfect  in  all  respect,  since  it  is  difficult 
to  think  that  one  member  only  is  completely  perfect  while  others  are 
not.  "We  see,"  says  he,  "of  course,  in  every  day  life,  that  people  of 
very  different  degrees  of  perfection  may  be  closely  united.  But  I  do 
not  see  how  there  can  be  any  unity  at  all  if  each  is  not  helped  by 

18  Wells,  God  the  Invisible  King,  p.  35. 
"Ibid.,  p.  61. 
15  Ibid.,  p.   100. 

18  James,  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  310. 
"Ibid.,  p.  311. 

"Ibid.,  p.   318. 

19  Ibid.,  p.  129. 


96  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

the  perfection,  and  hindered  by  imperfection,  of  every  other.  Any 
hindrance  must  prevent  the  person  hindered  from  being  quite  perfect, 
and  this  seems  to  render  God's  perfection  impossible."20  Hence,  he 
holds  that  even  moral  perfection  is  also  unascribable  to  a  non-omnipo- 
tent God. 

McTaggart  pursues  further  the  logical  implications  of  his  conception 
of  imperfect,  finite  God.  If  the  director  of  the  universe  is  finite,  he 
asks,  why  should  we  be  certain  that  there  is  only  one?  Many  of  the 
facts  of  experience,  while  they  are  compatible  with  the  theory  of  a 
single  director  working  under  limitations,  suggest  at  least  as  strongly 
the  idea  of  several  such  beings,  working  in  opposition,  or  possibly  partly 
in  harmony  and  partly  in  opposition.  Or  supposing  that  only  one  direc- 
tor is  at  work  in  the  part  of  the  universe  which  we  know,  still  that  part 
may  be  very  small  compared  with  the  whole.  How  shall  we  tell  that 
there  are  not  other  regions — perhaps  separated  from  ours  by  vast  immense 
intervals — in  which  other  beings,  higher  or  lower  than  he  whose  work 
we  perceive  here,  are  working  out  other  independent  and  isolated  pur- 
poses? There  is  nothing,  perhaps,  which  should  prevent  us  from  giving 
the  name  of  God  to  each  of  several  beings  simultaneously  existing.  It 
may  not  be  impossible  to  revert  to  polytheism,  or  to  conceive  God  as 
striving  against  other  persons  who  equal  him  in  everything  but  goodness. 
But  the  name  of  God  seems  to  imply  that  the  person  to  whom  it  is 
applied  is  of  appreciable  importance  when  measured  against  the  whole 
universe.  A  person  who  was  only  one  among  millions  of  similar  being 
would  scarcely  be  allowed  the  name.  And  yet  this  may  be  the  case 
with  the  person,  if  there  is  only  one,  to  whom  we  owe  all  the  order  and 
purpose  which  we  can  observe  in  the  universe.21  Thus  according  to 
McTaggart  the  God  whom  we  know  may  not  necessarily  be  the  only 
director  of  the  universe,  but  he  may  be  one  among  many  such  directing 
persons.  Yet  he  is  worthy  of  our  reverence  and  adoration  if  we  owe  him 
the  good  that  we  enjoy. 

3.  Summary.  Among  those  who  deny  omnipotence,  we  noticed 
two  distinct  types,  i.e.,  (1)  Those  who  hold  that  God  is  the  Creator  of 
the  universe  although  he  is  limited  in  power,  and  (2)  those  who  deny 
also  the  creatorship  of  God  who  is  not  omnipotent.  The  reason  of  the 
denial  is  very  obvious,  namely,  if  God  is  the  de  now  creator  of  the  universe, 
even  though  he  is  not  almighty,  the  existence  of  evil  must  be  attributed 
to  his  creative  work,  but  then  the  fact  of  evil  disparages  the  supreme 
goodness  of  God.  God,  on  the  other  hand,  can  be  free  from  any  conscious 

20  McTaggart,  op.  tit.,  p.  254. 

21  Ibid.,  p.  257  ff. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  97 

authorship  of  evil,  if  he  is  not  the  creator  of  the  universe  but  is  simply 
working  in  it  for  its  improvement.  We  have  seen  three  different  con- 
ceptions of  God  on  this  hypothesis:  God  may  be  a  designer  of  the 
cosmos  working  on  coexistent  material,  or  may  be  a  spirit  of  good  making 
improvement  upon  the  universe  created  by  other  than  himself,  or  finally, 
he  may  be,  as  in  pluralistic  idealism,  one  of  many  gods,  but  is  particularly 
intimately  related  with  us  because  of  his  beneficence. 


CHAPTER  IX 
CONCLUSION 

I.  Restatement  of  the  Problem  of  Omnipotence  and  its  Solutions 
in  a  Simplified  Form.  As  we  have  observed  in  the  main  discussion, 
all  the  problems  connected  with  omnipotence  involve  the  problem  of 
evil.  The  fact  of  evolution  does  not  give  rise  to  any  problem  of  omnipo- 
tence unless  it  involves  the  evils  due  to  conflict  and  struggle,  destruction 
and  waste.  The  existence  of  imperfections  as  mere  immaturities  does 
not  constitute  a  problem  of  omnipotence  unless  the  imperfections  are 
at  the  same  time  felt  as  suffering  or  evil  such  as  death,  disease,  error, 
maladjustment.  While  pain  and  suffering  as  physical  and  mental 
evils  have  their  place,  sin  as  moral  evil  is  of  course  located  at  the  very 
center  of  the  problem  of  omnipotence.  This  involves  the  problem  of 
freedom — freedom  to  act  contrary  to  the  nature  and  character  of  God 
the  all-master  of  the  universe.  Hence  the  problem  of  omnipotence 
centers  around  the  problem  of  evil.  If  our  observation  is  correct,  the 
pivotal  point  of  the  problem  can  be  tersely  restated  in  the  following 
manner. 

1.  Fundamental  Presuppositions.  In  our  inherited  thought  God 
is  a  perfectly  moral  (or  good)  as  well  as  almighty  creator  and  governor 
of  the  universe. 

(1)  If  this  be  so,  the  existence  of  evil  in  the  world  is  incompatible 
either  with  the  perfect  goodness  or  with  the  omnipotence  of  God.     For 
if  God  be  perfectly  good  and  almighty,  it  is  natural  for  him  to  create  all 
things  good  and  perfect  rather  than  to  fashion  them  short  of  the  charac- 
ter which  the  creator  himself  possesses  in  superabundance.    We  can  easily 
solve  the  problem  if  we  deny  either  of  the  two  attributes,  that  is,  goodness 
or  omnipotence.     Suppose  we  deny  the  divine  goodness,  the  presence 
of  evil  becomes  nothing  problematic  because  God  himself  may  be  wicked, 
but  a  wicked  being  ceases  to  be  God;  hence  this  denial  of  goodness  is 
destructive  to  theism.     If  then  we  deny  omnipotence,  the  presence 
of  evil  may  be  ascribed  to  a  foreign  power  or  rival  principle  of  evil,  or 
may  be  regarded  as  due  to  the  intractability  of  the  material  God  has 
used  in  creation,  or  due  to  his  faulty  workmanship. 

(2)  But  the  theological  interest  that  adds  difficulty  to  the  problem 
is  the  desire  to  affirm  both  perfect  goodness  and  omnipotence. 

(3)  Theologians  feeling  the  difficulty  have  modified  the  idea  of 
omnipotence  by  saying  that  omnipotence  does  not  mean  power  to  do 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  99 

anything  whatever,  but  ability  to  do  only  those  things  logically  and 
morally  possible  to  do.  God  exercises  his  almighty  power  only  in 
rational  and  ethical  directions.  Does  this  modification  do  away  with 
the  difficulty  in  affirming  both  goodness  and  omnipotence?  We  will 
handle  the  question  both  in  the  affirmative  and  the  negative. 

2.  The  Strongest  Points  in  Favor  of  Affirming  Omnipotence  in  a 
Modified  Sense.  (1)  God  had  either  to  create  a  moral  system  in  which 
free  agents  are  to  develop  their  character  through  the  free  exercise  of 
their  power  of  initiative,  or  else  to  create  a  mechanical  system  in  which 
all  things  are  puppets  or  machines  to  execute  slavishly  the  command 
of  their  task-master.  God  has  chosen  the  former  alternative,  as  the 
law  of  reason  precludes  all  other  possibilities.  The  problem  of  evil 
then  can  easily  be  solved  by  asserting  that  a  moral  system  is  a  system 
that  involves  evil  to  be  vanquished;  if  there  is  no  evil,  there  would  be 
no  moral  task.  Hence  the  contrasts  between  virtue  and  vice,  good  and 
evil,  pleasure  and  pain,  joy  and  sorrow,  are  a  necessary  implication  of 
life,  or  at  least  they  are  inevitably  incidental  to  the  developing  life  of  free 
moral  agents.  God  ex  hypothesi  need  not  be  able  to  do  what  is  impossible. 
And  so  if  he  cannot  eliminate  evil  in  the  moral  world,  his  omnipotence 
will  remain  intact.  We  can  indeed  in  our  present  status  of  knowledge 
hardly  conjecture  the  perfect  world  in  which  there  is  no  moral  task  of 
conquering  evil  and  which  should  yet  be  a  moral  world.  A  world  which 
gives  us  no  task  for  conquering  evil  would  be  a  non-moral  or  supermoral 
world.  It  may  be  a  blessing,  but  that  blessing  would  be  scarcely  felt 
as  blessing  unless  we  have  in  contrast  a  hardship  to  attain  it  or  suffering 
that  accompanies  our  failure  to  attain.  The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolu- 
tion supposes  the  possibility  of  effort  and  hardship  in  his  perfect  world, 
but  if  we  are  absolutely  sure  that  our  effort  would  never  bring  failure 
nor  our  hardship  entail  suffering,  that  effort  would  cease  to  be  effort  and 
that  hardship  no  longer  be  hardship.  Our  joy  of  achievement  would  be 
almost  reduced  to  nothing,  a  shadowy  semblance,  if  there  were  no  sorrow 
to  obstract  our  quest  of  happiness.  The  reality  of  joy  and  pleasure, 
the  truth  of  good  and  virtue,  we  cannot  feel  unless  there  is  the  reality  and 
truth  of  their  opposites.  Our  life  is  an  evil-conquering  task.  If  it  were 
perfect  in  every  detail,  there  would  be  even  no  life  at  all,  but  a  perfect 
machine  that  runs  in  its  grooves. 

(2)  The  second  point  that  speaks  for  the  vindication  of  the  ways  of 
God,  as  has  already  been  stated,  is  the  conception  of  human  freedom. 
We  admit  that  the  greater  part  of  human  suffering  is  suffering  from  sin 
and  sin  is  mostly  due  to  human  free  will.  God  is  justified  if  we  say 


100  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

that  it  is  logically  impossible  to  grant  freedom  to  man  and  prevent  him 
at  the  same  time  from  making  a  wrong  choice.  For,  God  ex  hypothesi 
cannot  make  a  logical  contradiction,  and  if  he  cannot  do  the  illogical 
his  omnipotence  is  not  thereby  limited.  The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution 
holds  that  freedom  is  not  incompatible  with  sinlessness.  But  his  con- 
tention seems  to  be  unwarranted.  Freedom  means  a  power  of  contrary 
choice,  a  choice  between  two  or  more  possibilities.  Suppose  we  had  a 
freedom  to  choose  good  only  but  no  evil  at  all,  then  our  freedom  would 
be  reduced  to  half  the  range  which  we  can  have  when  we  are  free  to 
choose  evil  as  well.  If  there  are  any  possible  varieties  of  choice  in 
diverse  degrees  of  good,  our  freedom  would  be  half  as  much  as  we  can 
have  when  similarly  possible  varieties  of  choice  are  open  for  us  in  the 
diverse  degrees  of  evil-doing.  We  admit  that  God  might  have  granted 
180  degrees  of  freedom  by  prohibiting  us  to  meddle  with  the  hemisphere 
of  evil,  opposite  to  that  of  good.  This  would  be  indeed  a  freedom,  and 
so  far  perfectly  compatible  with  sinlessness  because  we  have  no  freedom 
to  sin.  God  might  have  been  able  to  create  such  a  world  of  one-sided 
freedom,  but  within  that  realm  of  good,  if  we  are  left  to  choose  freely 
one  act  instead  of  or  in  preference  to  another  when  we  are  to  act  at  all 
as  free  agents,  this  rejected  act  would  become  a  lesser  good  in  comparison 
to  the  chosen  one.  Then  by  repeated  actions  of  a  similar  sort,  or  through 
our  experience  of  lesser  goods  and  greater  goods,  there  will  soon  grow 
up  a  standard  by  which  we  shall  be  habituated  to  judge  certain  acts  as 
less  good  than  others.  And  this  habitual  depreciation  of  certain  acts 
will  gradually  bring  them  down  to  the  category  of  evil  and  will  reject 
them  as  not  to  be  chosen  at  all  in  preference  to  other  acts.  Acts  of  free 
choice  then  involve  a  creation  of  good  and  evil,  even  if  there  were  no 
original  distinction  between  good  and  evil,  or  even  if  there  were  good 
alone.  Thus  I  think  this  argument  from  human  freedom  with  its 
logical  incompatibility  with  non-evil  or  sinlessness  is  a  sharp  weapon 
against  the  non-omnipotence  hypothesis.  Can  we  not  suppose  that 
God  knew  that  human  freedom  entails  evil,  but  that  his  gift  of  freedom 
is  a  wiser  divine  choice  than  its  alternative  which  would  have  incurred  a 
greater  evil?  This  way  of  vindicating  God  McTaggart  regards  as  a 
confession  of  non-omnipotence  since  God  is  limited  in  his  possibilities. 
But  McTaggart,  it  will  be  recalled,  takes  the  word  omnipotence  to  mean 
ability  to  do  anything  whatever.  Now,  theological  definition  precludes 
this  kind  of  omnipotence :  it  holds  that  God  is  omnipotent  if  he  can  do 
all  that  is  possible  logically  and  morally.  Granting  freedom  on  the  one 
hand,  and  preventing  the  free  agent  from  making  a  wrong  choice  on 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  101 ' 

the  other — why,  this  is  a  logical  impossibility.     If  God  cannot  do  this, 
his  omnipotence  will  not  thereby  be  impaired. 

3.  The  Strongest  Points  in  Favor  of  Denying  Omnipotence  even 
in  the  Modified  Sense  of  the  Term.  We  have  briefly  set  forth  the 
strongest  defense  of  omnipotence  in  the  modified  sense  by  the  appeal 
to  logical  consistency  on  the  part  of  God.  Supposing  that  it  is  illogical 
to  create  a  moral  system  without  the  task  of  conquering  evil,  and  to 
grant  freedom  without  power  to  make  wrong  choice,  God  cannot  be 
charged  with  impotence  on  this  account.  But  this  defense  gives  rise 
to  many  objections  and  arms  its  opponents  with  weapons  to  their  ad- 
vantage. 

(1)  The  above  defense  of  omnipotence  rests  upon  a  logical  consistency 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  logical  consistency  must  be  preferable  to 
moral  excellence.     If  God  be  perfectly  good,  could  he  create  or  permit 
evil  in  order  to  be  logically  consistent  with  the  moral  system  which  was 
to  be  created?    We  need  not  follow  McTaggart  here  and  say  that  logic 
itself  is  God's  creation,  and  if  God  were  omnipotent  he  could  remake 
the  laws  of  logic  whenever  they  become  incompatible  with  the  moral 
demand  for  absence  of  evil.    But  let  us  suppose  as  Johnson  does  that 
God  had  to  create  the  world  with  life  and  its  incidental  evil  or  else  he 
had  to  create  none  at  all  in  order  to  be  logically  consistent  because  there 
would  be  no  virtue  without  vice,  no  joy  without  sorrow.     God  has  chosen 
a  lesser  evil.     If  the  divine  choice  were  thus  limited  to  such  an  alternative 
which  at  all  events  includes  evil,  we  can  hardly  admit  that  God  is  both 
perfectly  good  and  also  omnipotent  in  his  nature.     Johnson  and  others 
would  rather  give  up  the  idea  of  omnipotence  than  to  do  dishonor  to  the 
divine  goodness. 

(2)  But  the  ordinary  theological  conception  of  God  is  not  such  as 
Johnson  supposes.  God  is  perfectly  moral  and  has  for  himself  no  moral 
task  to  conquer  evil.    A  moral  system,  it  is  said,  necessarily  involves 
evils  to  be  conquered,  but  this  logic  is  not  used  in  the  account  of  the 
divine  character.     If  God  is  perfectly  moral  and  yet  does  not  sin,  does 
not  do  wrong,  then  this  very  idea  is  a  confession  of  the  fact  that  there 
is  a  possibility  of  a  moral  being  or  system  in  which  there  is  no  need  of  an 
evil-conquering   task. 

It  may  be  said  that  God  had  to  conquer  evil  in  himself  but  this  was 
a  matter  of  long  past.  He  has  already  accomplished  his  task  and  so 
he  is  now  perfectly  moral  yet  has  no  longer  any  task  of  conquering  evil. 
But  this  concession  is  to  make  God's  life  imperfect  as  a  whole,  as  it  em- 
braces the  past  and  the  present.  If  God  has  made  a  complete  break 


102'  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

with  the  past,  and  the  past  evil  is  absolutely  forgotten,  he  is  no  longer 
moral  but  a  non-moral  being  since  no  moral  being  is  possible  without  a 
moral  task  according  to  the  definition.  At  any  rate,  granting  that 
there  is  a  possibility  (as  in  case  of  God  himself)  of  moral  perfection  which 
does  not  involve  the  incidental  necessity  of  evils  to  be  vanquished  as 
its  moral  task,  it  would  lead  us  necessarily  to  own  that  there  is  some- 
thing which  is  possible  but  which  God  cannot  do,  hence  he  is  not  omni- 
potent. The  same  thing  can  be  said  of  freedom.  If  God  is  a  free 
being,  yet  does  not  make  a  wrong  choice  in  his  free  act,  there  is  the 
possibility  in  the  universe  of  a  perfect  freedom  compatible  with  perfect 
sinlessness.  If,  this  being  possible,  God  did  not  create  his  free  agents 
in  such  a  manner  that  they  would  never  make  a  wrong  choice,  he  cannot 
be  perfectly  good;  or  if  he  could  not,  he  must  surrender  his  claims  to 
omnipotence  because  he  could  not  do  what  it  was  possible  to  do. 

(3)  On  the  other  hand,  let  us  assume  as  theologians  do  that  no 
moral  system  could  avoid  incidental  evil  for  its  moral  task  of  triumph. 
And  let  us  also  assume  that  no  free  beings  would  be  infallible  in  their 
choice  of  acts.     Then  our  God  must  be  regarded  as  embracing  evil  in 
his  own  moral  existence  beacuse  he  as  a  moral  being  also  needs  an  evil- 
conquering  task  in  himself.     And  God  has  no  safeguard  against  wrong 
choice  in  the  free  exercise  of  his  power  because  he  is  regarded  to  be  a 
free  agent  par  excellence.     This  is,  however,   to  sacrifice  the  divine 
goodness  on  the  score  of  his  omnipotence. 

(4)  For  these  reasons,  it  seems  better  to  give  up  the  idea  of  omnipo- 
tence, rather  than  to  make  the  divine  character  embrace  evil  by  supposing 
God  to  be  perfectly  moral  and  perfectly  free.     For  it  is  far  more  con- 
sistent with  our  moral  sense  to  hold  that  God  as  a  perfectly  moral  being 
would  create  a  world,  if  it  were  possible,  without  any  evil,  true  to  his 
nature,  but  that,  limited  in  his  power,  he  cannot  realize  this  ideal  at 
once.  This  is  far  better  than  to  conceive  that  God  is  perfectly  good  and 
omnipotent,  and  so  must  be  able  to  create  the  world  just  like  himself, 
yet  does  not,  permitting  instead  evil  in  it  for  moral  training  or  some 
other  purposes.     In  this  case  God's  moral  character  can  not  be  perfect 
although  he  may  be  perfectly  omnipotent. 

4.  Further  Reduction  of  Divine  Omnipotence  as  to  Creatorship. 
The  divine  omnipotence  is  closely  connected  with  his  creatorship. 
Creation  has  indeed  been  offered  as  the  veritable  proof  of  his  omnipotence. 
But  as  McTaggart  points  out,  we  can  no  longer  consistently  affirm  God's 
creatorship  if  we  deny  his  omnipotence.  Suppose  this  world  as  a  moral 
system  to  be  developing  through  the  process  of  evolution.  The  very 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  103 

idea  of  an  evil-conquering  task  seems  inevitably  implied  in  such  a  system. 
We  can  easily  admit  some  amount  of  evil  as  necessary  for  a  moral  world, 
but  the  world  as  it  is  at  its  present  condition  with,  for  instance,  such  an 
atrocious  warfare  as  we  have  now  in  Europe,  and  with  such  a  perversion 
of  moral  standards  and  social  ideals  even  among  Christian  thinkers 
some  of  whom  justify  war — such  a  heinous  aspect  of  life  as  we  now 
experience,  extremely  trying  and  tormenting  to  our  ideals  of  brotherly 
love — such  we  can  never  think  as  necessary  to  a  moral  system  or  to  the 
evolutionary  development  of  humanity  at  all.  Such  a  world  as  this 
in  which  many  phenomena  of  life  simply  exist  as  sheer  negation  of  what 
is  good,  as  destroying  and  devastating,  wasting  and  weakening  what 
has  been  achieved  and  accomplished,  can  never  be  a  result  of  God's  crea- 
tive task — the  creative  task  consciously  executed  by  a  good  God.  If 
God  be  the  de  now  creator  of  this  world  in  which  diabolical  evil  is  so 
rampant  that  it  goes  beyond  the  bounds  of  ethical  necessity  or  education- 
al utility,  God  cannot  escape  the  charge  against  his  benevolent  character. 
Such  a  thing  as  the  present  European  war,  it  may  be  said,  is  totally 
due  to  human  avarice  and  wickedness.  But  who  is  the  creator  of  those 
wicked  men?  If  God  is  the  original  creator  of  all  things,  he  must  be 
responsible  for  all  the  evil  that  there  is.  Is  it  not  more  comfortable  to 
think,  as  Wells  does,  that  the  world  is  not  created  by  God,  but  that  as 
it  exists  it  is  in  a  process  of  evolution,  and  God,  no  matter  whether  he  be 
one  of  the  products  of  evolution  or  not,  is  only  a  directing  force  in  it  of 
good  which  is  guiding  us  toward  the  endless  production  and  perfection 
of  what  is  good  and  beautiful.  God,  if  limited  in  power,  may  make 
mistakes  and  this  may  cause  evil,  but  we  need  not  doubt  his  moral 
sincerity  and  enthusiasm  in  the  effort  to  eliminate  evil  under  whatever 
form  it  arises  in  the  process  of  evolution  from  the  lower  to  the  higher 
stage  of  moral  achievement. 

II.  Religious  Valuation  of  the  Different  Positions.  As  we  have  sum- 
marized the  salient  points  of  argument  both  for  omnipotence  and  non- 
omnipotence  in  their  relation  to  the  problem  of  evil,  we  may  finally  under- 
take to  estimate  the  religious  advantage  and  disadvantage  of  the  opposing 
hypotheses.  We  will  take  up  first  the  negative  aspect  and  then  the 
positive  aspect  of  their  religious  value. 

1.  Religious  Disadvantages  of  Typical  Positions.  (1)  Religious 
Disadvantages  Involved  in  the  Assertion  of  Omnipotence.  Some  of 
those  who  affirm  omnipotence  tend  to  ignore  evil  as  ultimately  unreal, 
holding  either  that  it  is  being  transmuted  into  good  (Royce,  Hocking) 
or  that  it  is  outbalanced  by  good  (Bradley).  Some  of  them  attenuate 


104  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

evil  by  considering  it  as  educative  means  for  the  good  of  humanity 
(Brown).  But  this  tendency  to  ignore  evil  as  unreal  is  declared  by 
James  and  McTaggart  to  be  against  the  facts  of  practical  experience. 
If  evil  exists,  even  as  an  illusion,  the  fact  would  disparage  the  divine 
perfection  either  in  goodness  or  power.  The  theory  that  considers 
evil  as  educative  means  is  objected  to  by  such  theologians  as  Sheldon 
who  asserts  that  "it  puts  God  in  the  odious  light  of  taking  evil  into 
His  plan  for  the  sake  of  good,  whereas  the  ordinary  ethical  code  of  men 
condemns  those  who  do  evil  that  good  may  come."  Thus  the  assertion 
of  omnipotence  in  this  manner  tends  to  detract  from  the  divine  bene- 
volence, which  is  one  of  the  highest  values  in  religion. 

Clarke,  Ward,  and  Galloway  consider  the  existence  of  evil  to  be 
inevitably  incidental  to  the  life  of  free  conscious  persons  co-working  in 
the  process  of  evolution,  but  they  attribute  responsibility  to  God  for 
creating  the  conditions  which  render  possible  the  existence  of  evil.  "A 
Deity,"  says  Galloway,  "who  creates  beings  that  may  sin  and  who  in 
fact  do  sin,  must  be  held  to  be,  so  far,  responsible  for  the  consequence 
of  his  creative  action."1  "No  doubt  God  must  have  a  certain  indirect 
responsibility  for  moral  evil;  and  of  course  a  more  direct  responsibility 
for  natural  evil.  "2  Clarke  also  refers  to  the  joint-responsibility  of  God 
and  men  for  the  origin  of  evil.  If  we  have  thus  to  make  God  responsible 
for  the  existence  of  evil  in  order  to  assert  his  omnipotence,  it  is  better, 
thinks  McTaggart,  to  give  up  the  idea  of  omnipotence  in  the  interest 
of  saving  the  divine  goodness  intact,  since  an  omnipotent  God  who 
produced  evil  cannot  be  regarded  as  supremely  good.  A  religious 
disadvantage  here  then  is  the  inevitable  questioning  of  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  Deity  for  the  sake  of  asserting  his  omnipotence. 

The  problem  of  evil  is  confessed,  by  some  theologians,  to  be  not  fully 
soluble  on  the  hypothesis  of  omnipotence.  We  cannot  solve,  says  Clarke, 
the  question  or  see  our  way  through  the  perplexities,  yet  God  must  be 
believed  to  be  both  almighty  and  all-loving.  Garvie  also  says  that 
"a  complete  solution  is  not  possible.  .  .  .  Here  we  walk  by  faith, 
and  not  sight;  we  are  saved  by  hope."3  Such  confessions  of  ignorance 
can  scarcely  help  toward  an  adequate  knowledge  of  God  in  our  ardent 
quest.  Indeed,  the  mystifying  of  the  divine  personality  with  such  an 
"awe-inspiring"  idea  as  omnipotence  is  held  by  Johnson  to  separate 
him  from  our  practical  life.  "Omnipotence, "  says  he,  "divided  Him,  as 

1  Galloway,  The  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  543. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  541. 

3  Garvie,  A  Handbook  of  Christian  Apologetics,  p.  151. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  105 

by  an  unfathomable  gulf,  from  us.  We  worshipped  we  knew  not  what, 
a  being  of  inconceivable  attributes."4 

"Evil  becomes  a  problem,"  says  Hocking,  "only  because  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  Absolute  is  there."5  The  problem  of  evil  as  to  its 
origin  is  due  to  our  interest  in  affirming  both  Divine  omnipotence  and 
supreme  goodness,  that  is,  His  absoluteness.  If  God  is  not  good,  the 
existence  of  evil  becomes  no  problem;  or  if  God  is  not  almighty,  evil 
may  exist  against  His  will,  in  spite  of  His  supreme  goodness.  Hence 
if  we  are  to  deny  either  of  the  two  attributes,  the  problem  of  evil  would 
immediately  vanish.  When  we  face  this  dilemma,  to  save  either  the 
divine  goodness  or  omnipotence,  we  would  naturally  prefer  the  former 
alternative,  since  God  cannot  be  God,  as  McTaggart  maintains,  if  He 
is  not  supremely  good.  Insistance  upon  omnipotence  is  thus  always 
accompanied  by  our  scepticism  about  divine  benevolence,  as  Galloway, 
who  affirms  omnipotence,  says  that  it  is  impossible  to  absolve  God  from 
all  responsibility  for  evil.6 

(2)  Religious  Disadvantages  Involved  in  the  Denial  of  Omnipotence. 
Those  who  deny  omnipotence  conceive  of  their  God  not  as  absolute  but 
as  finite.  Evil  is  real,  and  as  to  its  origin  there  is  no  problem  for  them 
because  it  exists  in  spite  of  the  good  God  who  is  not  absolute.  Mill 
conceives  it  to  be  due  to  the  faulty  workmanship  of  a  non-omnipotent 
God  who  has  to  use  intractable  matter  coexistent  with  Himself.  John- 
son considers  evil  as  incidental  to  evolving  life.  God  could  not,  being 
limited  in  power,  create  a  world  without  evil.  McTaggart  and  James 
on  their  pluralistic  hypothesis  regard  evils  as  non-divine  constituents 
of  the  universe.  Wells  attributes  evil  to  the  Demiurge  or  the  world 
Creator  who  is  not  God,  while  the  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  introduces 
the  independent  power  of  evil  coexistent  with  God.  All  these  theories, 
except  Johnson's,  are  based  upon  either  dualistic  or  pluralistic  view  of 
the  universe.  The  idea  is  detrimental  to  our  monotheistic  enthusiasm 
and  love  of  unity. 

Again,  the  conception  of  a  non-omnipotent  or  finite  God  is  found 
unsatisfying  to  many  theologians.  Garvie  says  that  the  Christian  could 
not  maintain  the  certainty  of  his  salvation  had  he  any  doubts  of  God's 
power.7  "We  could  not  live,"  says  Hocking,  "without  the  Absolute, 
nor  without  our  idea  of  the  Absolute.  .  .  .  Accepting  fully  the  pragmatic 

4  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,   p.   92. 

5  Hocking,  The  Meaning  of  God  in  Human  Experience,  p.  203. 

6  Galloway,  op.  cit.  527. 

7  Garvie,  op.  cit.,  p.  145. 


106  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

guide  to  truth,  we  conclude  that  the  only  satisfying  truth  must  be 
absolute — that  is,  non-pragmatic."8  Our  pragmatic  data  of  experience 
do  not  give  us  any  intimation  of  the  Absolute  nor  absolute  truth,  but 
no  one  would  deny  that  our  quest  after  God  implies  a  quest  after  a 
non-pragmatic  absolute  ground  of  our  life.  "The  inner  insufficiency  of 
earthly  goods  impels  the  religious  spirit  to  go  beyond  the  world  and 
seek  its  goal  in  a  transcendent  Good."9  Such  a  demand  for  absolute 
Good  indeed,  as  Hocking  says,  causes  the  problem  of  evil,10  but  our  need 
of  the  Absolute  in  practical  life  arises  from  our  desire  to  conquer  evil 
and  make  our  victory  sure.11  If  God  is  admittedly  imperfect  and  finite, 
how  could  we  have  peace  and  tranquillity  of  soul  and  the  assurance  of 
final  victory  in  our  struggle  for  life  over  forces  of  evil?  If  omnipotence  is 
denied  to  God,  we  are  liable  to  be  led  to  a  pessimistic  outlook  of  the 
world  such  as  is  found  in  John  S.  Mill.  Wells's  finite  God  is  a  militant 
being  grimly  fighting  against  diabolical  evils  but  not  giving  one  the 
sense  of  decisive  triumph.  McTaggart  finds,  says  Hocking  criticising 
his  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  that  "his  finite  God  becomes  an  intruder, 
and  an  obstacle  to  the  loyalties  of  the  spirit."12  Indeed,  McTaggart 
himself  confesses  that  a  finite  God  plays  less  part  in  human  life  than  an 
absolute  Deity.  ''If  God's  moral  character  is  saved  by  limiting  his 
power,"  says  he,  "we  have  no  right  to  be  confident  as  to  the  eventual 
victory  of  those  ends  in  which  God  is  interested.  We  know  that  he 
will  work  for  them,  and  we  know  that  they  will  be  the  more  triumphant 
or  the  less  defeated  because  of  his  efforts.  But  we  do  not  know  that 
they  will  be  completely  triumphant.  "13  Hocking's  conclusion  is  that  a  finite 
God  is  of  no  worth  and  that  "we  must  be  able  to  reach  a  kind  of  maturity 
in  respect  to  God  himself  in  which  we  are  ready  to  assume  the  bur- 
den not  only  of  omniscience  but  also  of  omnipotence,  with  regard  to  some 
fragment,  however  minute,  of  the  historical  work  of  the  universe."14 
"Things  which  have  the  highest  of  values  least  admit  of  valuation.  "15 
To  estimate  critically  and  intellectually  the  personality  of  the  Divine 
Being  may  tend  to  debilitate  our  absolute  faith  and  confidence  in  Him. 
To  make  every  item  of  the  divine  attributes  rationally  consistent  may 

8  Hocking,  op.  cit.,  p.  206. 

9  Galloway,    op.   cit.,   p.   438. 

10  Hocking,  op.  cit.,  p.  203. 
"Ibid.,  p.  205. 

"Ibid.,  p.  226. 

18  McTaggart  Some  Dogmas  of  Religion,  p.  259. 

14  Hocking,  op.  cit.,  pp.  502  ff. 

16Moulton,    The  Modern  Stttdy  of  Literature,  p.   492. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  107 

result  in  a  reduction  of  religious  sentiment.  Religious  faith  does  not 
grow  as  a  consequence  of  logical  argumentation,  but  it  is  essentially 
the  heart's  aspiration  to  something  higher,  nobler,  more  beautiful  in 
life.  Thus  the  denial  of  omnipotence  is  thought  to  be  unsatisfying 
to  the  aspiring  soul. 

2.  Religious  Value  of  Typical  Positions.  (1)  Religious  Value  of 
Affirming  Omnipotence.  Hocking  in  whom  the  current  of  James's 
pragmatism  and  that  of  Royce's  absolutism  meet,  asserts  from  his 
functional  viewpoint  the  need  of  the  Absolute  in  religious  life.  "The 
known  God-function  tends  to  disjoint  the  humanity  of  the  thing  worship- 
ped. What  the  worshipper  has  before  him  is  not  man,  but  man  denied; 
man  at  war  with  all  that  is  false  in  his  own  humanity;  man  overcoming 
himself;  man  in  Untergang,  as  Nietzsche  would  have  it,  giving  way  to 
Superman.  "16  Ward  who  attempts  to  harmonize  the  claims  of  pluralism 
with  those  of  theism  also  asserts  that  "  the  idea  of  God  would  be  meaning- 
less, unless  God  were  regarded  as  transcending  the  Many;  so  there  can 
be  no  talk  of  God  as  mere  primus  inter  pares.  On  the  other  hand  it  would 
be  equally  meaningless  to  talk  of  God  apart  from  the  Many.  A  God 
that  was  not  a  Creator,  a  God  whose  creatures  had  no  independence, 
would  not  himself  be  really  a  God."17  "God  in  short  is  the  absolute 
Genius — the  World-Genius.  Any  analogy  drawn  from  our  experience 
must  then  be  inadequate  to  such  an  experience:  God's  ways  are  not 
as  our  ways  nor  his  thoughts  as  our  thoughts.  But  the  difference  lies 
simply  in  transcending  the  limits  to  which  our  experience  points  but 
can  never  attain.  "18  Our  demand  of  God  thus  implies  that  God  should 
be  one  who  transcends  human  finitude  not  only  in  goodness  but  also 
in  power.  Our  burden  of  sorrow  is  lightened  through  our  confidence 
in  the  divine  power.  "We  are  indeed  lifted  above  evil  or  borne  through 
it  by  our  attachment  in  the  Absolute."19  We  do  not  so  much  care 
about  the  origin  of  evil  but  we  are  particularly  concerned  about  its 
disposal.  It  is  not  cause  but  end  that  gives  rise  to  the  practical  problem 
of  evil.  And  what  we  desire  of  God  is  assurance  of  victory  over  all 
that  is  detrimental  and  injurious  to  life.  Our  faith  in  an  absolute  God 
therefore  is  considered  to  be  adequate  to  the  heart's  demand  for  a  super- 
human reality.  "In  God  we  have,"  says  Hocking,  "the  notion  of  an 
other-than-all-men,  and  an  Other  whose  relation  to  me  is  not  subject 

18  Hocking,  op.  cit.,  p.  482. 

17  Ward,   The  Realm  of  Ends,  p.   241. 

18  Ibid.,  p.  240. 

19  Hocking,    op.    cit.,    p.    500. 


108  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

to  evil  through  its  own  defect;  one  from  whom  therefore  I  can  anticipate 
no  pain  that  must  refer  me  to  still  another  for  its  transmuting.  "20  Brown 
expresses  more  forcibly  the  religious  value  of  our  faith  in  omnipotence. 

"There  is,"  he  writes,  "no  doctrine  which  is  practically  more  important  than 
that  of  the  divine  omnipotence.  It  led  Christ  to  go  cheerfully  to  the  cross,  confident 
that  his  cause  would  triumph  in  spite  of  apparent  defeat.  It  has  given  courage  to 
the  martyrs  and  saints  of  every  age.  It  is  the  only  sure  stay  of  faith  in  the  midst  of 
the  imperfections  and  discouragements  of  the  world.  In  face  of  obstacles  apparently 
insuperable,  faith  bears  the  promise,  'with  man  it  is  impossible,  but  with  God  all  things 
are  possible,'  and  answers  with  the  confession,  'I  believe  in  God  the  Father  al- 
mighty.' "21 

A  finite  God  who  is  limited  in  power  would  be  greatly  reduced  in  his 
divine  function.  It  is  a  common  desiderate  of  the  religious  person  that 
if  God  exists  he  must  be  perfect  in  power  as  well  as  in  goodness.  God 
transcendent  yet  immanent,  the  unitary  ground  yet  multiple  in  mani- 
festation, omnipotent  yet  acting  in  limited  ways,  absolutely  good  yet 
struggling  with  evil,  the  sole  creator  of  the  universe  yet  not  the  creator 
of  evil — such  ideas  may  be  logically  inconsistent,  but  our  conative  de- 
mand transcends  logic  and  we  desire  our  God  to  be  supremely  powerful 
to  surmount  every  obstacle  laid  before  us. 

(2)  Religious  Value  of  Denying  Omnipotence.  Wells  observes 
that  "the  real  God  of  the  Christians  is  Christ,  not  God  Almighty."22 
"God,  in  the  religious  life  of  ordinary  men,"  says  James,  "is  the  name 
not  of  the  whole  of  things,  but  only  of  the  ideal  tendency  in  things, 
believed  in  as  a  superhuman  person  who  calls  us  to  cooperate  in  his 
purposes,  and  who  furthers  ours  if  they  are  worthy.  He  works  in  an 
external  environment,  has  limits,  and  has  enemies."  The  line  of  least 
resistance,  James  continues,  both  in  theology  and  philosophy,  is  to 
accept  the  notion  that  God  is  not  all-embracing,  but  is  finite,  either  in 
power  or  in  knowledge,  or  in  both  at  once.23  Thus  rational  consistency, 
as  well  as  the  fact  of  practical  religion,  is  claimed  on  the  side  of  denying 
omnipotence,  and  reasonableness  is  no  doubt  a  religious  value. 

The  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  who  denies  omnipotence  by  attribu- 
ting evil  to  a  rival  power  of  Satan,  says  that  if  you  assume  the  disturbance 
of  the  perfectly  evolving  universe  according  to  natural  laws  by  the  intru- 
sion of  a  diabolical  power,  "you  have  a  theory  which  accounts  intelligibly 
for  every  phase  and  form  of  the  world's  moral  and  social  evil,  while  you 
leave  the  character  of  the  Creator  purely  benevolent.''1  The  idea  that 

"Hocking,  op.  cit.,  223  ff. 

21  Brown,  Christian  Theology  in  Outline,  p.  117. 

22  Wells,  Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through,  p.  406. 
21  James,  A  Pluralistic  Universe,  p.  311. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  109 

evil  is  somehow  essential  to  Divine  purposes  "has  been  infinitely  per- 
nicious in  obscuring  and  darkening  the  wholly  benignant  character  of 
the  Creator.  "24  The  author's  contention  is  that  the  perfection  of  divine 
goodness  cannot  be  kept  intact  unless  we  deny  the  perfection  of  his 
power. 

Johnson  who  considers  God  as  a  growing  being  and  therefore  finite,  says  that 
"shorn  of  the  word  omnipotence  the  idea  of  God  becomes  something  less  awe-inspiring, 
perhaps,  less  mysterious,  less  removed  from  us  and  all  our  possibilities,  but  on  the 
other  hand,  it  becomes  something  more  real,  more  intelligibly  worshipful,  infinitely 
more  moral  and  love-inspiring.  He  appears  as  one  who  shares  the  battle  with  us,  who 
counts  on  us  as  supporters  in  the  world  process.  ...  He  is  one  to  love  and  to  work 
for.  Our  devotion  to  Him  is  not  a  mere  fleeting  incense,  it  is  a  positive  factor  in  a 
world-not-yet-finished,  in  a  process  which  may  be  advanced,  or  hindered,  by  the  way 
in  which  we  lead  our  lives.  What  we  should  most  earnestly  desire  is  not  the  absolute 
confidence  of  the  foregone  conclusion,  but  an  unconquerable  faith,  a  faith  that  is 
synonymous  with  devotion,  courage,  loyalty."26 

Wells  also  expresses  a  similar  sentiment  of  loyalty  and  devotion  to 
his  finite  God: 

"Now  it  follows  very  directly,"  says  he,  "from  the  conception  of  God  as  a  finite 
intelligence  of  boundless  courage  and  limitless  possibilities  of  growth  and  victory, 
who  had  pitted  himself  against  death,  who  stands  close  to  our  inmost  beings  ready  to 
receive  us  and  use  us,  to  rescue  us  from  the  chagrins  of  egotism  and  take  us  into  his 
immortal  adventure,  that  we  who  have  realized  him  given  ourselves  joyfully  to  him, 
must  needs  be  equally  ready  and  willing  to  give  our  energies  to  the  task  we  share 
with  him,  to  do  our  utmost  to  increase  knowledge,  to  increase  order  and  clearness, 
to  fight  against  indolence,  waste,  disorder,  cruelty,  vice,  and  every  form  of  his  and 
our  enemy,  death,  first  and  chiefest  in  ourselves  but  also  in  all  mankind,  and  to  bring 
about  the  establishment  of  his  real  and  visible  kingdom  throughout  the  world."26 

Let  us  finally  refer  to  Mill's  ennobling  conception  of  the  place  of 
human  effort  in  such  a  universe  which  is  directed  or  governed  by  a 
non-omnipotent  God. 

"One  elevated  feeling  this  form  of  religious  idea  admits  of,"  says  he,  "which  is 
not  open  to  those  who  believe  in  the  omnipotence  of  the  good  principle  in  the  universe, 
is  the  feeling  of  helping  God — of  requiting  the  good  he  has  given  by  a  voluntary  co- 
operation which  he,  not  being  omnipotent,  really  needs,  and  by  which  a  somewhat 
nearer  approach  may  be  made  to  the  fulfilment  of  his  purposes.  The  conditions  of 
human  existence  are  highly  favorable  to  the  growth  of  such  a  feeling  inasmuch  as  a 
battle  is  constantly  going  on,  in  which  the  humblest  human  creature  is  not  incapable 
of  taking  some  part,  between  the  powers  of  good  and  those  of  evil,  and  in  which  every 
even  the  smallest  help  to  the  right  side  has  its  value  in  promoting  the  very  slow  and 
often  almost  insensible  progress  by  which  good  is  gradually  gaining  ground  from  evil, 
yet  gaining  it  so  visibly  at  considerable  intervals  as  to  promise  the  very  distant  but 
not  uncertain  final  victory  of  Good."27 

24  Evil  and  Evolution,  p.  158. 

25  Johnson,  God  in  Evolution,  pp.  91  ff. 

26  Wells,  God  the  Invisible  King,  pp.  104  ff. 

27  Mill,  Three  Essays  on  Religion,  p.  256. 


110  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

The  advantage  of  the  denial  of  omnipotence  is  in  short  that  it  would 
have  appeal  to  the  intellectual  persons  to  whom  logical  consistency  is 
no  less  vital  than  their  heart's  demand.  In  this  democratic  age  of  ours, 
there  are  many  people  who  feel  disappointed  to  think  that  we  are,  as 
creatures,  simply  to  follow  the  fixed  plan  of  the  Creator,  or  we  are  ulti- 
mately under  his  control.  Their  enthusiasm  toward  works  of  culture 
would  be  stimulated  if  they  could  believe  that  we  are  ourselves  creators 
in  our  own  little  ways,  and  if  we  have  God  on  our  side  we  can  help  him  as 
we  are  helped  by  him.  Such  a  feeling  as  this,  as  Johnson,  Wells,  and 
Mill  have  enthusiastically  expressed  it,  would  give  them  ennobled  faith 
and  confidence  in  human  capacity,  worth  and  dignity,  and  consequently 
strengthen  their  self-imposed  sense  of  duty  and  responsibility.  Denial 
of  omnipotence  may  at  first  shock  our  traditionally  cultivated  feelings 
and  may  suggest  a  trifling  with  the  divine  character  by  puny  human 
logomachy.  But  the  affirmation  of  omnipotence,  when  pushed  to 
extremes,  leads  to  a  dilemma,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  can  be  met  only 
by  denying  or  transmuting  or  attenuating  the  fact  of  evil.  To  the  honest 
doubters  facing  such  a  dilemma  the  denial  of  some  of  the  attributes  of 
the  divine  character  traditionally  held  would  render  a  better  service 
than  the  mystifying  of  the  divine  personality  with  illogical  thoughts. 

III.  Conclusion — Current  Tendency  in  the  Conception  of  God. 
(1)  Evil  as  Rival  Principle  to  God.  The  hypothesis  of  a  finite  God  with- 
out unlimited  power  who  is  not  the  Creator  of  the  universe,  as  far 
as  we  have  investigated,  seems  to  be  intellectually  a  more  defensible 
position  than  the  logically  untenable  conception  of  an  absolute  God. 
There  is  today  a  strong  current  tendency  toward  a  conception  of  God 
which  modifies  or  denies  the  divine  absoluteness  and  omnipotence.  God 
is  more  and  more  frankly  conceived  to  be  a  finite  being  struggling  against 
evil.  The  reality  of  evil  is  more  and  more  recognized  as  a  rival  principle 
to  God  the  principle  of  good.  It  is  natural  for  us  to  imagine  a  personal 
reality  of  evil  as  well  as  of  good  at  the  moment  of  intense  experience. 
Wm.  James  analyzing  his  experience  in  a  California  earthquake  says, 
"First  I  personified  the  earthquake  as  a  permanent  individual  entity.  .  . 
To  some  apparently,  a  vague,  demoniac  power;  to  me  an  individualized 
thing.  "28  The  anonymous  author  of  Evil  and  Evolution  solves  the  prob- 
lem of  evil  likewise  by  insisting  on  the  reality  of  Devil  as  an  intruder 
into  the  universe  of  our  good  God,  while  James,  McTaggart,  and  others, 
solve  the  problem  by  a  pluralistic  hypothesis.  Prof.  James  Maine 

"Coe,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  100. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  111 

Dixon  in  conversation  with  me  said  a  few  years  ago  that  if  you  deny  the 
reality  of  the  Devil,  making  him  a  mere  psychical  "eject,"  you  must 
also  deny  the  reality  of  God,  for  the  latter,  no  more  and  no  less  than 
the  former,  would  be  a  mere  imaginative  construct.  Theism  cannot 
monopolize  reality  for  God  alone.  And  if  you  admit  anything  undivine 
as  real  in  the  cosmos,  you  must  be  prepared  to  confess  that  God  is  not  an 
absolute  but  a  finite  being  who  is  struggling  against  the  non-divine 
elements  of  the  universe.  Our  faith  should  be  a  belief  in  the  steady 
progress  of  his  cause  and  his  final  triumph  by  our  zealous  cooperation 
in  his  world-transcending  task  that  can  be  achieved  only  through  the 
practice  of  righteousness  and  love. 

(2)  Changed  Metaphysics,  Changed  Theology.  This  conception 
of  a  finite  God  is  in  harmony  with  a  current  tendency  of  thought,  which 
has  been  strongly  affected  or  almost  revolutionalized  by  the  evolutionary 
view  of  biological  science.  The  old  static  view  of  things  has  yielded  to 
the  dynamic  view  of  becoming  and  development.  Things  were  formerly 
judged  in  relation  to  an  unchangeable  substance  or  Absolute.  Philo- 
sophy was  a  science  of  this  unchangeable  reality.  But  philosophy  today 
is  responding  to  the  spirit  of  empirical  science.  Says  John  Dewey, 
"Philosophy  will  have  to  surrender  all  pretention  to  be  peculiarly  con- 
cerned with  ultimate  reality,  or  with  reality  as  a  complete  (i.  e.,  completed) 
whole:  with  the  real  object."29  "For  centuries,"  says  he  further, 
"political  and  moral  interests  were  bound  up  with  the  distinction  between 
the  absolutely  real  and  the  relatively  real."30  But  modern  science 
asserts  that  there  is  nothing  absolute  in  our  experience;  all  things  are 
relative  as  to  their  genesis  and  function.  Things  are  what  they  are 
through  the  process  of  becoming.  Bergson  goes  even  so  far  in  his 
dynamic  view  of  creative  evolution  as  to  deny  the  existence  of  things. 
"There  are  no  things;  there  are  only  actions."  Fichte  we  remember 
said  long  ago  that  "Am  Anfang  war  die  Tat"  in  place  of  the  Biblical 
expression  "In  the  beginning  there  was  Word."  According  to  the 
Bergsonian  conception  of  an  elan  vital  and  its  ceaseless  flux,  "God  has 
nothing  of  the  already  made;  He  is  unceasing  life,  action,  freedom."31 
God  is  thus  a  growing  being  and  therefore  finite.  The  old  theology 
of  an  absolute  God  which  was  based  upon  the  static  view  of  things  is 
giving  way  to  the  evolutionary  conception  of  the  universe — of  God  and 
man.  A  new  mataphysics  demands  a  new  theology.  The  movement 
is  thus  a  symptom  of  the  profound  theological  transformation  taking 
place  in  our  day. 

29  Dewey,  Creative  Intelligence,  p.  53. 

»°  Ibid.,  p.  57. 

11  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  p.  248. 


112  OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY 

(3)  The  Temper  of  Our  Age  and  Theological  Transformation.    The 
theological  transformation  is  involved  in  the  prevalent  temper  of  our 
age  with  which  we  look  at  social  evils.    Traditional  theology  and  philo- 
sophy looked  upon  everything  in  its  general  abstract  aspect  and  inter- 
preted it  only  in  its  bearing  on  the  whole  of  reality.     Evils  were  thus 
considered  to  be  either  outbalanced  or  overruled  by  good,  or  attenuated 
by  its  utility  as  a  means  to  good  ends.     Such  a  consummate  philosopher 
as  Hegel  who  is  the  founder  of  modern  monistic  absolutism  regarded 
evil  as  a  sort  of  intellectual  error.     Evil  for  Hegel  was  "a  negative 
which,  though  it  would  fain  assert  itself,  has  no  real  persistence,  and  is, 
in  fact,  only  the   absolute    sham -existence  of  negativity  in  itself."12 
Evil  is  thus  a  mere  negation,  privation,  and  in  the  end,  an  illusion. 
His  absolutistic  followers,  such  as  Bradley  and  Royce,  as  we  have  seen 
in  our  discussion  of  the  problem  of  evil,  take  more  or  less  a  similar  attitude 
toward  evil,  all  tending  to  ignore  it  from  the  viewpoint  of  the   total 
reality.     But  the  current  pragmatic  view  of  life  would  treat  even  "lies, 
dreams,  insanities,  deceptions,  myths,  theories,"  as  Dewey  puts  it,  as 
real  "events"  in  their  particularistic  aspect  as  well  as  in  their  general 
aspect,  and  give  them  a  voice  in  our  democratic  metaphysics  of  experi- 
ence (James).     In  this  changed  state  of  thought  we  are  increasingly 
coming  to  a  more  realistic  and  vigorous  recognition  of  evil  and  a  corres- 
ponding emphasis  on  moral  aggressiveness  against  evil  as  indisputable 
fact  of  life.     The  practical  investigation  of  the  social  problems  involved 
in  the  defective,  the  dependent,  the  delinquent,  or  poverty  and  prostitu- 
tion,  alcoholism  and  other  social  diseases,  is  constantly  calling  our 
attention  to  a  radical  reform  movemnt.    A  moral  protest  against  in- 
stitutionalized evils  such  as  are  connected  with  sweating  industry, 
child  labor,  trade  union,  labor  union,  trust,  syndicate,  capitalism,  socialism, 
etc.,  is  raising  a  battle  cry  for  the  downfall  of  vested  power  and  inherited 
prestige.     Such  a  democratic  movement  of  social  emancipation  today, 
with  its  slogan  of  "  Humanity  First, "  is  quite  in  contrast  to  the  naive 
optimism  of  the  past  generations  which  took  a  static  and  complacent 
attitude  toward  existing  evils  under  the  influence  of  absolutist  theology 
and  left  undone  the  necessary  improvements  to  be  made  on  human 
affairs  to  the  gracious  care  of  an  omnipotent  God.    The  new  conception 
of  a  finite  God  who,  through  the  cooperation  of  his  loyal  men,  is  con- 
stantly struggling  against  every  form  of  evil,  exactly  fits  in  with  the 
temper  of  our  age,  and  is  perfectly  consistent  with  the  general  outlook 
of  our  social  progress. 

32  Hegel,  Logic,  trans,  by  Wallace,  p.  71. 


OMNIPOTENCE  IN  CURRENT  THEOLOGY  113 


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